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THE MARY JANE PAPERS 





"SO I FOUND A PEN AND PUT IT DOWN FOR HER.” Pa <?£ 97. 

© 


1 


THE MARY JANE 
PAPERS 


By 

A. G. PLYMPTON 

n 

Author of “Dear Daughter Dorothy,” “Little Sister of Wilifred,” 
“Two Dogs and a Donkey,” etc. 


WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS 
BY THE AUTHOR 


7 

t 


NEW YORK 

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



Copyright, 1884, 

By White, Stokes and Allen. 



Copyright, 1906, 

By Frederick A. Stokes Company. 


This edition published in October, 1906. 


LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

OCT %% 1906 

p Copyright Entry 

VfL, fO. ^ 

CLASS h No. 

1-s-s+n 

COPY B. 


THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A. 


PREFACE 


A PREFACE is a great bore, but I suppose 
every book ought to have one. I have 
looked at a great many to see just how to 
write it, and I find they usually begin something 
in this style : “ In offering these memoirs to the 
American Public, I feel deeply my own incompe- 
tence, etc., etc.” But mercy ! I think I am a great 
deal more competent to write my own autobiog- 
raphy than any one else. For an autobiography, 
you know, is a story that the heroine writes herself. 
From those I have read, I should say that the 
heroines of autobiographies are even superior to 
other heroines. 

This is my autobiography and I am Mary Jane. 
Besides the preface, there is another bore, and 
that’s the title. The trouble about that is, it has 
to fit the book. It seems that anything that is 
especially appropriate has been used by somebody 
else, so that I have settled at last on plain Mary 
Jane Papers. 


PREFACE 


viii 

My Uncle John said I ought to have a poetical 
quotation, too, on the title-page, and suggested 
some lines which I have used, although there 
doesn’t seem to be much sense to them. But 
then, you know, you don’t expect much sense in 
poetry. 

Some of these chapters have already been pub- 
lished in St. Nicholas, but as that is only a child’s 
magazine, and a great many people, therefore, have 
missed seeing them, I have gathered them all to- 
gether, and with a number of other chapters 
presented them to the “American Public” in this 
little book. 


CONTENTS 


Chapter Page 

I. Kitty's Mother 1 

II. How I Took the Prize 12 

III. A Term at the Tuckertown School ... 23 

IV. The Spicers' Cows 34 

V. Mrs. Polly Ann Bunce's Best Cap .... 42 

VI. Being Artistic 53 

VII. A Visit to Mary Jane — From the Pen of 

Beth Hall 65 

VIII. Sally . . 84 

IX. Mrs. Melancthon Benner 92 

X. My Come Out Party 105 































































































































































































































ILLUSTRATIONS 


44 So I found a pen and put it down for her 11 


. Frontispiece 


y 


“ 4 Can’t play any more now ; it ’s school 
time ’ ” / 


Facing page 


y 


44 All the poorest and dowdiest girls were 
in it ” 

“I could just see ’Tildy’s hand with the bell 
in it” 

44 4 How d’ ye do, Mary Jane ? ’ said she. 
4 How d’ ye do, Miss Spicer,’ said I ” . 

44 Beth confessed that the mantel-shelf looked 
very artistic ” 

44 Mercy ! How we did sing ! twice as loud 
as the grown-up choir ” 

44 We stayed in a long time and played we 
were sirens ” 


14/ 
28 y 
m 

58 

71 


98 





THE MARY JANE PAPERS 



















































































. 














































































MARY JANE PAPERS 


CHAPTER I 

KITTY^S MOTHER 

I WONDER if any one thinks how tiresome it is 
to be a little girl, and how perfectly horrid a 
girl’s mother can be, if she chooses. No; that ’s 
the worst about grown people, they never seem to 
suspect that there is anything out of the way about 
them. They are saints in white, of course. All but 
Kitty’s mother! She is perfectly splendid. 

I don’t know Kitty’s mother very well, but they 
live in a splendiferous big house next to ours, and I 
often hear what goes on at the other side of the 
fence. 

My mother makes me wait on her all day long. 
It ’s “ Mary Jane, just put on your hat and run 
down to Bennet’s and see why they don’t send the 
coal ” ; or, “ Mary Jane, step ’round to Hazelton’s, 
and tell them to send me a peck of potatoes.” Very 
nice, to be sure. Why don’t she “ just run round to 
1 


2 


KITTY’S MOTHER 


Bennet’s or step into Hazelton’s ” herself, if it ’s 
such a trifle? 

Kitty’s mother says: “Don’t wear yourself out 
carrying that heavy parasol. Let Eliza hold it 
over your head, love.” I heard her as they were 
walking in the garden. 

Imagine my mother thinking that I could wear 
myself out. No, not though I ran errands and 
tended baby, and ran up and down stairs all day 
long. 

And oh, once I was in the toy-shop, and Kitty 
and her mother came in, and her mother did actually 
say, “ Don’t you see anything here that you would 
like, Kitty dear? ” and “ Kitty dear,” like a little 
simpleton, said, “No, mamma.” 

I wish my mother would let me call her 
“ mamma,” it sounds so stylish, and makes you feel 
just like a girl in a book; but she says “ mother ” 
is the most beautiful name in the world. I ’m sure, 
I don’t think so. 

People say that I ’m not a good little girl, and I 
think it ’s because I ’m not brought up judiciously. 
It spoils a child’s disposition to be constantly 
thwarted, and that ’s why I do a great many things 
that are bad. That ’s why I tear my clothes so 
often, and make up faces behind people’s backs. 



“can't play any more now; it's school time." — Page 8, 





KITTY’S MOTHER 


I ’m aggravated. If my mother was not so strict 
about my going to school, I think I should be a 
much better girl. I ’ll tell you how I have to 
manage when I don’t want to go. I get the twins, 
and begin the most interesting play that ever was. 
Just as we get all ready to have the party, or get 
into the cars for a journey, or something exciting, 
I stop short and say: “ I can’t play any more now; 
it ’s school time.” Then Lucy sets up the most 
awful howl, and as she has been sick, it is n’t good 
for her to cry, so if mother ’s pretty busy, and can’t 
’tend to her, she says : “ Perhaps you had better 
stay at home to-day, Mary Jane. Lucy is so fret- 
ful, and will have to be amused.” And then I get 
them into the yard, and run away and have a good 
time by myself. I know it is n’t right, but I ’m 
aggravated to it. 

But what I particularly like about Kitty’s mother 
is that she is so interested in everything you do, and 
is so encouraging. Now there is that composition I 
wrote, and mother snubbed so. At least, she said I 
had better try something more simple, and would n’t 
let me give it in. It begins: “ It was a beautiful 
spring morning, and all nature seemed to blend 
with one accord into each other.” Well, I always 
thought it was real good, and when I read it to 


4 


KITTY’S MOTHER 


Kitty’s mother she said she thought it was beautiful, 
and that I would turn out a f amous authoress. 

All this I wrote one day in my journal. It is 
dated a year ago, so now I can tell you what hap- 
pened afterward when I had a chance to compare 
Kitty’s mother with my own. 

One day, Kitty’s mother came to see mine. I 
supposed that she had come to make a call, and I 
thought that was splendid, ’cause I believed that 
she might influence her to bring me up as she did 
Kitty. But, oh, she had an object in coming that I 
never should have dreamt of. She wanted to adopt 
me for a companion for Kitty. I was in the room 
when she told my mother so, and my heart bounced, 
I can tell you. 

I thought mother looked amused at first, and she 
put her hand under my chin to hold my face up to 
hers, and said : “Do you want to leave your mother, 
dear?” I really believe she thought I wouldn’t 
want to go. 

When I said, “ Oh, mother, do let me,” a great 
blush came over her face. “ I will think it over,” 
she said, quietly, to Kitty’s mother, “ and I ’ll let 
you know my decision.” 

She had a long talk with father when he came 


KITTY’S MOTHER 


5 


home. I don’t think he approved of my going, but 
after the twins were in bed and baby asleep, she 
came into my room, and told me that she had con- 
cluded to let me try it for a month, while she and 
the children paid a visit to grandpa. 

I could hardly believe my senses, for I never 
supposed she would let me go, and I was wild 
with delight. Kitty’s mother is a perfect love, 
I declared, and mother kissed me gently and 
left me. 

In just a week, I began to be Kitty’s mother’s 
little girl. My trunk was carried over to the big 
house, and I kissed my mother — my first mother, 
you know — and the twins, and carried the baby 
to the carriage that was to take them to the station, 
and after seeing it drive away, I followed Kitty to 
my splendid new home. 

I had never been in the house before. When I 
had seen Kitty and her mother, it had always been 
in the garden or the little summer house. That is 
where I read my compositions to them, and learned 
to think Kitty’s mother perfection. But now I en- 
tered the tiled hall, and walked through the elegant 
rooms on either side of it. It just turned my head 
to think of living there. -t , 

“ Now we ’ll go upstairs, and you shall see the 


6 


KITTY’S MOTHER 


room that has been prepared for you,” said my 
mamma. 

“ Yes, mamma, said Mary Jane, tossing back her 
golden curls as she glode down the marble hall.” 

This I said out loud, but I intended to say only 
“ yes, mamma,” — the rest came out before I knew 
it. You see, I was pretending I was in a book. 

Kitty’s mother laughed outright. “ YY>u are the 
most amusing child,” said she; “ but I should think 
being called Mary Jane would take the poetry out 
of anything.” “ It does,” said I eagerly, “ I want 
to be called May Jennie instead.” So May Jennie 
I became. In two or three days, I almost forgot 
that I had ever been called Mary Jane at all. My 
new mother was just elegant, I thought, and there 
were no errands and no baby. 

I did n’t know just what to make of Kitty, — she 
was n’t a bit like me, or any girl I knew. When I 
played with her it always reminded me of the day I 
was shut up in the spare chamber, and made believe 
that my image in the glass was another little girl 
and tried to play with it; she would do just what 
I did, but she would never do anything first. She 
did n’t care to play much, anyway. Her mother 
said that she was too delicate, and I f elt that I ought 
to be too delicate, too. At first, it was great fun 


KITTY’S MOTHER 


7 


to pretend to be too feeble to move, and call a ser- 
vant every time I wanted anything; but I got very 
tired of that sort of thing, by and by. One day, 
I said to Kitty’s mother, — 

“ I should like to go and splash round in a mud- 
puddle, as I used to do when I was Mary Jane 
Hunt.” 

I thought she would never let me, on account of 
my fine clothes, but she said, “ I am afraid you can’t 
find a mud-puddle, there has been so little rain 
lately; but you can tell Thomas to take the hose 
and make one for you.” 

I could not help laughing at this plan. I should 
feel pretty cheap to do that. I think I ’ll get a 
book and read, instead. 

“ There,” said she, “ that just proves my theory. 
You never would have cared to do such things, if 
your mother had not been so strict. The fact is, 
she does n’t know how to bring up children. Why, 
my dear, how warm you look! ” 

I suppose I did look warm. I felt mad. Why 
should she go and talk in that way about my mother? 
To be sure, I had complained about her myself 
when I was Mary Jane Hunt, and grumbled be- 
cause she made me run errands, and amuse the baby, 
and pick up threads off the carpet, but — 


8 


KITTY’S MOTHER 


About this time, I began to think it was very 
queer I had received no letters from mother. It ’s 
true I had not asked her to write to me, because I 
had n’t thought anything about it then. I longed 
to hear what they were doing at grandpa’s. So one 
day I sat down and wrote, — 

Dear Mother: Why don’t you write to me? I want 
to know if the twins cry as much as usual, and if the baby 
is as cross now that his tooth is through. I ’m having a 
splendid time. 

Then this I scratched out and wrote instead : 

This is a very handsome house indeed. Does grandpa 
let the children ride old Whitey, and does Aunt Prue make 
many doughnuts? I can eat just as much cake as I want 
to, here; but they don’t have any doughnuts. I don’t see 
why. Do write soon to your own, 

Mary Jane. 

When the answer came, it was a real short one. 
Mother said the children had all gone huckleberry- 
ing (oh, don’t I like to go huckleberrying ! ) , and 
she never wrote a word about seeing me again. 
I thought she would say when she was coming 
home, and how glad she would be to see me when 
the month was over. Could it be that she expected 


KITTY’S MOTHER 


9 


me to live with Kitty’s mother always? I sat right 
down and cried at the thought of it. 

I made my eyes so red, that Kitty’s mother de- 
clared that I should receive no more letters. 

“ It just upsets you,’' said she, “ and besides, 
when a person adopts a child, she does n’t expect 
the relatives to meddle with it.” 

Meddle! I began to think I hated Kitty’s 
mother. 

I told the truth when I wrote that I could have 
all the cake I wanted, for Kitty and I used to have 
lots of it. I don’t believe it agreed with me, for 
before that month was over I became real ill. 
Now I knew why Kitty didn’t care to play, 
and preferred to loll all day on the lounge. I 
could n’t hold my head up, and I felt as cross as a 
bear. Oh, how I did snap at people if they spoke 
to me! 

Of course, I would not take any of the medicines 
prescribed for me, for I never do until my mother 
makes me. And Kitty’s mother only laughed when 
I flung them away. She did n’t ‘seem to try to do 
anything to make me more comfortable, but left me 
entirely in Eliza’s hands. I began to feel the value 
of the mother I had left. All day long I cried for 
her, till that hateful Eliza said, “ Lor’, miss, I 


10 


KITTY’S MOTHER 


would n’t be crying for her, she is n’t half so illigant 
as your new ma.” 

Oh, dear, I did feel so mad and so sick, I could n’t 
think of anything half horrid enough to say to her. 
I could only lie there and cry. 

I suppose I must have been pretty sick. I know 
I felt horrid. How I wished I was healthy Mary 
Jane Hunt again, with the baby and the errands, 
and the strict mother thrown in. 

“ She is a hundred million times better than 
Kitty’s mother, after all,” I sobbed to the 
pillow. 

When the doctor came, and inquired for Miss 
May Jennie, I screamed out that my name was 
Mary Jane Hunt, and I suppose he must have 
thought I was raving. 

But Eliza explained that that was my real name, 
and May Jennie only my new name I had taken, 
and all about my coming there to live. 

He was n’t the regular family doctor, for he had 
gone out of town; but I thought this one must be 
just as good, and better, too, when he took my hand 
and said: “Oh, ho! so that’s the trouble, is it? 
Well, Miss Mary Jane, we must get you back to 
your own mother. That ’s the kind of medicine 
you need.” And so a telegram was despatched that 


KITTY’S MOTHER 


11 


very night to Mrs. Deborah Hunt, and the next 
morning I was lying in her dear, kind arms. 

I had to take my medicines regularly after that, 
and I got well, but I think the reason was because 
I had got back to my own mother again, and the 
doctor thinks so, too. 

And now, if any one wants to make me real mad, 
they have only to call me May Jennie, or ask me 
if I don’t wish my mother was like Kitty’s mother. 


CHAPTER II 


HOW I TOOK THE PRIZE 

OLKS say that Dot is the beauty of our 



family. To be sure, Lucy is her twin and 


JL looks like her, of course; but the measles, 
and the mumps, and the whooping-cough have 
stolen her red cheeks and left her as thin as a wafer. 
Anyhow, she has the best disposition of any of us. 
and I suppose that counts for something. As for 
Baby, he has the worst disposition, and the strongest 
lungs, and is the greatest nuisance every way. 
“ But Mary Jane,” my mother says, “ is the 
smartest child I ever had.” 

I am Mary Jane. 

Perhaps you think it is vain of me to tell this at 
all. But I am writing my autobiography, you 
know, and must tell the truth, or it won’t be authen- 
tic. My father says, “ If it is not authentic, a work 
of this sort has little value.” So, you see, I am 
obliged to say that I am smart. 

As I must be authentic, I shall begin by saying 
that, although I am so smart, I am not at all hand- 


HOW I TOOK THE PRIZE 


13 


some. When they had the tableaux at our church, 
they never asked me to be in them, though Dot was 
stuck up in ’most every one. The idea of going to 
a show and having to look at Dot, whom I see every 
blessed day at home for nothing! Besides, when 
we have our pictures taken in a group, they always 
turn me sort of side face. I s’pose they don’t think 
I see through that. Well, beauty is only skin deep, 
as Mamie Whyte said in her composition; so I 
don’t care. 

At our Sunday-school, there were to be two 
prizes given at the end of the year. The first prize 
was to be a Bible, and the second a prayer-book! 
and the tw r o scholars who should learn the greatest 
number of verses in the Bible would get them. I 
never thought of such a thing as getting a prize. 
I had a Bible and a prayer-book, and I did n’t want 
another, anyhow. Ours was the most stylish class 
in school. We were the most stylish girls and had 
the most stylish teacher. We had the minister’s 
daughter for our teacher. 

Well, she said one day, — 

“ It ’s too bad none of you girls will try for the 
prize. I really should like to have one of you get 
it.” 

Milly Briggs said that some one in the minister’s 


14 


HOW I TOOK THE PRIZE 


daughter’s class ought to get it, but none of us 
wanted to try. There was Mabel Pratt, but she was 
going to New York for a visit, so she wouldn’t 
have time; and Jenny Gurney was so slow to learn, 
and Mamie Whyte and I did n’t want the trouble. 

Miss Parks had about the meanest class in the 
Sunday-school. All the poorest and dowdiest girls 
were in it; and Miss Parks herself wore a water- 
proof, and was so queer looking. Jo Holland was 
in it, for one; and I always hated her. No, I don’t 
hate her, of course, for that would be wicked. I 
mean I hate the evil that ’s in her, and that ’s a great 
deal. 

One day, coming out of school, Jo whispered to 
me: “ How many verses have you learned? ” 

“ Not more than twenty,” said I. 

“ Pooh,” said Julia Brown, one of Miss Parks’s 
girls, “ no one in that class will ever get it.” 

“I do believe,” declared Mamie Whyte to me, 
“ that Jo Holland thinks she is going to get the 
prize.” 

“ Well, she just sha’n’t then,” said I. “ I can 
learn just as many verses as she can, if I have a 
mind to; and I declare I will, just to spite her.” 

I made up my mind not to let Jo know that I 
was trying for the prize, thinking she would learn 





“all the poorest and dowdiest girls were in it." 

— Page lJf. 









HOW I TOOK THE PRIZE 


15 


more verses for fear of being beaten; and then, 
too, it would be such fun to surprise her at the very 
last moment. I did n’t even tell them at home, for 
fear they would let out the secret. I selected all 
the short verses, and left out the big ones between; 
and that next Sunday when Miss Newell, our 
teacher, asked me how many verses I had learned, I 
said, “ Fifty.” 

“ Dear me! I can’t hear you say so many to-day,” 
said she, looking pleased. 

Well, I didn’t have time to say more than five 
or six, but she gave me credit for fifty. And so 
with my other twenty, I had seventy in all. 

It was nearly Christmastime, and I was so busy 
getting my presents ready, that I did not have much 
time to study. 

For mother I was making a lovely pincushion. 
I began it for Aunt Jane; but that was two years 
ago, and. I knew she had forgotten all about it. I 
told Mamie Whyte that I was going to give it to 
her, and she said it was lovely, and thanked me for 
it; but that was before I dropped it in the coal-hod, 
and I did n’t believe she would want it after that. 
With mother it ’s different, because she says she 
values anything her children have taken pains to 
make for her. 


16 


HOW I TOOK THE PRIZE 


I meant to get something real handsome for 
father, but I had only fifty cents to buy it with. Dot 
and I used to go shopping every day after school, 
and that was fun. We always went into the hand- 
somest stores. I went into an elegant one once, 
and I told Dot that I knew we could find some- 
thing to suit us ; but everything was so dear. The 
clerk was very polite, too, and we looked, and 
looked, and looked; by and by I found the loveliest 
little stand for cigars, and I knew father would 
like it. It did n’t look very expensive, either, but 
the gentleman said it was five dollars and fifty cents. 

I asked him if he would n’t take off the five dol- 
lars and let us have it for fifty cents. 

He said he would, take off fifty cents and let us 
have it for five dollars, but that would not do. 

Dot told him to send us a postal card if he had 
anything before Christmas in his store for fifty 
cents. And then we went home. On the way we 
spent the fifty cents for pickled limes, and treated 
all the girls ; so I could n’t give f ather any present, 
after all. 

I was going to make Dot’s doll a dress. Mother 
said that she would cut it out, and I could make it. 
After a while I told her that I would rather she 
shoidd make it, and let me cut it out; hut it was 


HOW I TOOK THE PRIZE 


17 


already cut out by that time, and, finally, I got 
mother to make it for me too. 

When it came to Lucy’s present, I was tired of 
sewing, and mother suggested that I should give 
Lucy my calla; hut it had two buds on it, and I 
concluded to wait until summer, and give it to her 
on her birthday. 

So you see I had lots to do; but I squeezed out 
time to learn a great many verses. One day, when 
father came home, I heard him say, — 

“Mother, where is Mary Jane?” And Dot 
answered : 

“ She is up in her room, reading the Bible.” 

It sounded beautifully. That next Sunday I 
had fifty verses more ; and the next forty ; and then 
fifty again, and so on. 

Well, by and by, Jo Holland found out how 
many verses I had learned, and gave up trying for 
the first prize, and bent all her energies on the second 
prize. 

I was real mad with whoever told. 

I went right to Mamie Whyte and told her, and 
said, — 

“ Now, you must get that second prize.” 

“ I can’t; it ’s so late now,” replied she. 

But I told her how easy it was, if she only picked 
2 


18 


HOW I TOOK THE PRIZE 


out the short verses, and so many that Miss Newell 
could n’t hear them. 

Mamie didn’t like Jo any better than I did. 

“ I will try,” said she; “ but it ’s lucky we are 
not in Miss Parks’s class.” 

“ Why? ” I asked. 

“ Oh ! ’cause she makes ’em recite every single 
verse. I know, ’cause I used to be in it. You 
could n’t have beaten Jo Holland, if you had been 
in her class, could you, Mary Jane? ” 

Sometimes Mamie Whyte can say as disagree- 
able things as anybody I know; but I never take 
any notice of her mean speeches, and that ’s the way 
we get on. 

At last Christmas came. 

I did n’t like my presents very well. One was a 
book — a history. I have n’t read it yet. Mother 
gave me a new dress ; but I should have had to have 
it anyway, and I don’t like clothes for presents. 
The worst was a horrid work-basket, with lots of 
needles and thread in it. Aunt Jane sent me that, 
and I was real glad I had n’t given her anything. 
She said in her letter, that perhaps I should like to 
sew better if I had a nice little work-basket of my 
own. I wanted a locket. 

Dot and Lucy had lovely things; but mother 


HOW I TOOK THE PRIZE 


19 


says I am getting too old for toys. In the toe of 
my stocking I found a five-dollar gold piece, but I 
was n’t allowed to spend it, so I did n’t care for it. 
I consoled myself by thinking what fun it would be 
to see Jo Holland’s rage when Mamie and I got 
the prizes. 

We were going to have our festival in the church, 
right after the evening service, and of course all the 
people would be there. Each class had a motto and 
an emblem. Our motto was “ By their fruits ye 
shall know them,” and the emblem was lovely — a 
silver salver, with a stick all wound around with 
ribbons, standing in the centre of it, and heaped 
around with oranges. It was the most beautiful 
thing! The motto for Miss Parks’s class was “No 
cross, no crown,” and the emblem was n’t half so 
pretty as ours — nothing but an old evergreen 
cross. 

The church was as full as it could be. Mother 
couldn’t come, for she had to stay at home with 
Lucy, who was sick. But all the other mothers were 
there, and lots of people besides. When each class 
was mentioned, the scholars in it all stood up, and 
the one that held the emblem caried it to the altar. 
The minister held it up so the people could see it, 
and explained the motto, and then it was taken back 


HOW I TOOK THE PRIZE 


20 

again; Mabel Pratt carried our emblem. I sup- 
pose she was chosen because she has blonde hair, and 
wears such handsome clothes; but she is a clumsy 
thing, and tipped it up, so that some of the oranges 
rolled out on the floor, just opposite Miss Parks’s 
class, too. 

After all the emblems had been carried up, the 
prizes were given out. 

“ The first prize,” said Mr. Newell (that ’s our 
minister) “ is awarded to Miss Mary Jane Hunt, 
who has learned thirteen hundred and fifty-two 
verses in the Bible during the past year.” 

At the words, “ thirteen hundred and fifty-two 
verses,” everybody turned and looked at me; and as 
I stood up, a chorus of “ O-o-o-o-o-o-oh’s ” went 
’way round the church. I should have liked to 
stand there all day, but Miss Newell pulled me 
down. 

After I had received my prize, and taken my 
seat, the second one was given to Miss Mamie 
Whyte for nine hundred and thirty verses. Every- 
body stared again and the “ oil’s ” went round, but 
not near so many as for mine. I tried to look 
at Jo; but she was sitting in front of us, and I 
could n’t get a glimpse of her face. I think it was 
real hard to miss seeing her after I had worked so. 


HOW I TOOK THE PRIZE 


21 


Well, after Mamie came back with her prize, I 
supposed it was all over ; but what was my surprise 
when Mr. Newell popped up again to say that they 
had originally intended giving but two prizes, but 
a third was now to be awarded, as a mark of ap- 
probation, “ to Miss Josephine Holland, who had 
learned five verses regularly every week, without a 
single exception, during the entire year.” 

And up pranced Jo, as proud as a peacock! 

Just then, Mamie grabbed my arm and whispered 
that somebody said that we were all to be called up 
to repeat our verses, — 

Mercy! How frightened I was! My heart came 
right up into my mouth. It did! and my knees 
shook so that I could n’t have walked up to that 
altar again to save my life. 

Of course it would frighten anybody to have to 
recite thirteen hundred and fifty-two verses before 
a whole church full of people! but it turned out to 
be only a silly joke of Mamie’s, by which she meant 
to scare me. 

After the congregation had been dismissed, I 
saw the third prize ; and what do you think it was ? 
A real lovely locket ! 

Anyway I heard lots of people say that it was 
a queer prize to give at a Sunday-school, and I ’m 


22 


HOW I TOOK THE PRIZE 


sure I shouldn’t want to wear jewelry for having 
learned verses in the Bible. Beside, mother said if 
I would break myself of my habit of interrupting, 
she would give me a locket! So it all came out 
right, after all. 

It came out right, but, in spite of the glory of 
getting the prize, somehow it left a bad taste in my 
mouth, and I just hated to think of it. Every now 
and then my father would say that he was going to 
hear me repeat those verses; and whenever he 
looked at me, I thought my time had come. Every- 
body that I saw had something to say about the 
festival, and how smart I had been, and the children 
called me “ Miss Thirteen-hundred-and-fifty-two.” 

But whenever the subject was mentioned at 
home, mother looked at me in — well, such a suspi- 
cious sort of way, that I wished a hundred times it 
had never come into my head to try for the prize at 
all. I gave my Bible to Dot. 

On the fly-leaf was written, — 

“ Miss Mary Jane Hunt, 

from her affectionate pastor, 
Sunday-school festival.” 

and the date ; and Dot has written underneath, — 
“ She gave it to me.” 


CHAPTER III 


A TERM AT THE TUCKERTOWN SCHOOL 

T O be sure ’Tildy was an uncommon scholar 
for Tuckertown, but everybody said she was 
too young to teach school. “ A gal o’ that 
age,” said Deacon Fisher, “ can’t be expected to 
hev much discipline, and I wonder the committee 
should hev elected her.” 

It was the summer after the one in which I had 
been adopted by Kitty’s mother and following the 
winter I had taken the prize at Sunday-school, and 
I had become older and wiser since those foolish 
days. 

I had broken myself of all my bad habits. I 
never interrupted people any more, and never an- 
swered back. I was reformed. That spring, Lucy 
had come down with the scarlet fever, and Dot and I 
were sent to grandpa’s to escape the contagion, and 
that is how I came to go to school to ’Tildy Joy. 

Before I had been in Tuckertown five minutes, in 
came Beth Hall. We had always been bosom 
friends; but I remembered how she used to mock 


24 A TERM AT THE TUCKERTOWN SCHOOL 


grandpa’s limp, and Aunt Jane’s cough, and the 
way Deacon Fisher sang through his nose, and I 
wondered if I ought to go with her now that I had 
reformed. While I was making up my mind, she 
bounced up to me, saying, — 

You dear, elegant Mary Jane. I ’m so glald 
you ’ve come; ” and she kissed me, and I had to kiss 
her, of course, and after that there was no use hold- 
ing back. I thought at first I ’d try and reform her 
too; but she is so full of fun, and such a harum- 
scarum thing, that I concluded that it would n’t be 
any use to try. 

The minute Aunt Jane went out of the room, 
Beth told me that ’Tildy Joy was going to teach 
the district school. 

“ Just think of our having to mind her,” she 
said scornfully, “ and only last year she was nothing 
but a scholar herself, and played tag ’long of us, 
recesses.” 

“ Well,” said I, “ I sha’n’t mind a word she says, 
and you must n’t either, Dot.” 

“ Land, I pity the schoolma’am that has you for 
a scholar ! ” said Betsy, who had come up to un- 
strap our trunk. She did n’t know that I had re- 
formed, you see. “ You are a perfect imp and 
always were.” 


A TERM AT THE TUCKERTOWN SCHOOL 25 

I don’t care. I think it ’s real mean of Aunt Jane 
to send us to school when we come visiting her. 
’T is n’t polite, any how. 

I remember ’Tildy perfectly. She was a real 
green-looking girl, and wore the biggest sunbonnet 
in Tuckertown; and that’s saying a great deal. 
The J oys were poor, and they lived in a curious old 
black house, with a roof which sunk right in in the 
middle, and folks said it would tumble in, some time, 
on their heads. Aunt Jane said that she had heard 
that ’Tildy meant to fix the old house up, now that 
she had a salary. 

It seemed queer enough, I can tell you, to see 
’Tildy in the teacher’s seat that next morning, when 
Beth and Dot and I went into school. She had her 
dress made long, and braided her hair behind; and 
as she sat at the desk, she looked as stiff as a stick. 
I could see she was trying to be very dignified, but 
I remembered how she used to tease for my apple- 
cores, and I was n’t going to be respectful. 

44 How d’ ye do, ’Tildy? ” says I. 44 Going bare- 
foot this year? ” 

Everybody giggled except ’Tildy, and she looked 
bouncing mad. 

44 Take your place, Mary Jane,” said she. 44 The 
seat next to Beth Hall.” 


26 A TERM AT THE TUCKERTOWN SCHOOL 


Did you ever hear of such a goose? The idea of 
putting Beth and me together. After I had had 
all the trouble of reforming, too; for I knew the 
minute I slipped into my seat, that I never could 
keep that up, with Beth giggling at my side. You 
see she had a bad influence over me. She just set 
me on. She would have made a saint in white cut 
up capers, I do believe. I wonder why it was that 
no one saw how she set me on? But they didn’t; 
they thought poor innocent me was at the bottom 
of everything; and her mother even told Aunt 
Jane that Beth thought she must do just as I did, 
because I lived in the city. Now I am sure it was 
she that started all the mischief. It was she who 
proposed putting the toads in ’Tildy’s lunch-basket, 
and it was she who wrote that letter. I believe I 
told her what to say, but then that ’s nothing. We 
had lots of fun about the letter. You see we pre- 
tended it was sent by the committee, and we ad- 
dressed it to Miss ’Tildy Joy, and said that her 
salary was going to be raised, and signed it Deacon 
Green. He is one of the committee, you know. 
We watched her through the keyhole when she read 
it, and I remember how happy she looked all the 
morning, and how we giggled because she was so 
much more amiable than usual. 


A TERM AT THE TUCKERTOWN SCHOOL 27 


It was a real queer school. It was n’t one of the 
strict kind at all. 

There is no kind of a trick that we did not play 
on ’Tildy, at least I never heard of one. I never 
saw such a school before ; but it was n’t my 
fault. 

But the worst thing of all happened one day to- 
wards the end of the term. We had been expecting 
the committee all the morning, and had been on our 
best behavior. I don’t know how it came about, but 
they had all got an inkling of how T things went at 
school. Perhaps the mothers found out and told 
them. I know they did n’t want ’Tildy to teach 
next term, and they all seemed to think that she 
had n’t any discipline ; I don’t suppose she had. 
Jane Fairbanks, who lives in the next house to 
’Tildy, said, once she had seen Deacon Green go in 
there and thought, from the tone of his voice, that 
he was complaining about something. At any rate, 
she began to look pale and worried. Aunt Jane 
said she hoped I w r as not troubling ’Tildy with my 
shines. Shines, indeed ! It was all very well to feel 
kindly to her , but what was the use of hurting my 
feelings, I ’d like to know ? I was so mad, or rather 
grieved, that I made up a face at her every time she 
turned her back. 


28 A TERM AT THE TUCKERTOWN SCHOOL 


Well, the committee didn’t come, and it was 
recess time. 

“I’ll tell you what,” said Beth, “let’s, climb 
upon the roof and let ’Tildy hunt for us ” (I hope 
you notice that it was Beth and not I who said this) . 

“ Let ’s,” said I, and we all made a rush for the 
shed. We had got up on the roof before, and I 
knew that it was easy enough to boost each other 
up from the top of the shed. There we sat, waiting 
for the bell to ring. Pretty soon it did ring; I 
heard the door open, and by holding on to the edge 
of the roof and leaning over, I could just see 
’Tildy’s hand with the bell in it. Then she went in, 
and we waited. In a few minutes she rang it again, 
furiously. We were all giggling by this time, and 
if I had n’t held on to Dot she would have rolled off 
the roof. Then it sounded from out of the side win- 
dows, and then from a back window, and then at 
the door again, and then ’Tildy called and called, 
and finally she stepped out, and, still ringing the 
bell, walked towards the woods. I shall never for- 
get her look when she turned round and saw us. 

Oh, my! But was n’t she mad? She stood at the 
foot of the shed and called us to come down, in a 
voice that fairly shook with rage. I don’t know 
why, but we insisted that we were not coming down, 



‘ 1 COULD JUST SEE ‘TILDyV HAND WITH THE BELL IN IT.” 

— Page 28. 





A TERM AT THE TUCKERTOWN SCHOOL 29 


that we were going to say our lessons up there, and 
she could bring a chair out and sit down and hear 
them. While we were still there, and ’Tildy stood 
entreating us, we heard the sound of a wagon, and 
the first we knew that old committee had come. As 
we hopped down, one by one from the roof, they 
stood talking with ’Tildy and watching us. Beth 
said she thought she heard the words, “ too young,” 
and “ no discipline.” I know I heard ’Tildy sigh 
as I passed her to go into the schoolhouse, and her 
eyes were full of tears. We tried to do our best 
in the examination, but it was plain that ’Tildy had 
lost her hope and courage. I wondered, as I walked 
home, if she would lose her position, too, and that 
night I dreamt that the old Joy house had tumbled 
down, and folks said that it was my fault. 

There was going to be a huckleberry party that 
next day, and we all begged in vain to stay away 
from school and go. I didn’t feel near so bad 
about ’Tildy as I had in the night. I have noticed 
that I do most of my repenting, and make most of 
my good resolutions, in the night : and I think it ’s 
a real good plan, ’cause it leaves the days all clear 
to do what you please in. 

“ I think it ’s real mean,” said Beth; “ my mother 
never wants me to have any fun. Oh, if school only 


30 A TERM AT THE TUCKERTOWN SCHOOL 


would n’t keep, if only the schoolhouse had blown 
down, or ’Tildy was sick.” 

“ Oh, I wish she were,” said I, “ I hope she ate 
lots of plum-pudding and mince pie just before 
going to bed last night.” 

“ And currants and milk,” suggested Dot. 

“ And lobster,” said Beth. 

Just then Jane Fairfield came running towards 
us. 

“No school. ’Tildy ’s sick,” said she, and flew 
past us like a flash. 

We all looked at one another, and Dot began to 
cry. 

“ I did n’t mean it at all,” said I. “I — I only 
just said so.” 

Beth actually looked pale. “ Our saying so 
did n’t make her sick,” said she. Then she burst out : 
“ Mary Jane, you ’ve behaved awfully the whole 
term, and I don’t think you are a good girl for me 
to go with.” 

That was a pretty idea, was n’t it? I just got mad 
with Beth Hall. “ It was your fault more ’n mine,” 
said I. “ I had reformed, and you are a — ” 

But Beth was gone. 

“ I would n’t mind,” said Dot. “ Her conscience 
is a-pricking her.” 


A TERM AT THE TUCKERTOWN SCHOOL 31 

“ I hope it is,” said I, fiercely; “ and yours, too, 
miss; ” and I turned from the road and fled into 
the woods. I don’t know where Dot went. 

’ W ay down behind the schoolhouse was a cave, 
where we often played house, Beth and I. I went 
there because I would be sure of seeing no one. 
There I sat all the forenoon, and thought of all the 
tricks we had played on ’Tildy, and called myself 
and poor little Dot and Beth all the hard names I 
could think of. I know I must have felt real sorry, 
for I made up my mind to go and tell ’Tildy so, and 
promise to be a better girl in the future. 

As I came out by ’ Tildy ’s house, what was my 
surprise to find Beth sitting on the old stone wall 
by the road. 

“ Well, if I ever,” said I. “ What did you come 
here for? ” 

“ I ’m going to see ’Tildy,” explained Beth. 
“ My conscience has been pricking me till I feel 
like a pincushion, and I ’m just going to tell ’Tildy 
how sorry I am, and that I shall behave like an angel 
when she comes back.” 

“ Well,” said I, “ that ’s what I came for. Let ’s 
go together, for, you know, folks say we always 
set each other on. Now, Beth, you begin and set 
me on pretty quick, ’cause Aunt Jane will be as 


32 A TERM AT THE TUCKERTOWN SCHOOL 


cross as a bear if I don’t get home in time for 
dinner.” 

“ But you must set me on too,” said Beth. 

“ I ’m trying, but you don’t go,” I answered. 

Beth sniffed. “ It ’s all bosh about my setting 
you on, Mary Jane. You don’t budge an inch. I ’ll 
bet I could push you along a lot faster,” and before 
I knew what she was about, I was right in front of 
the door. I meant to knock and then slip round 
the corner, leaving Beth to face the music; but the 
door opened suddenly, and Mrs. Joy, ’Tildy’s 
mother, stood upon the threshold. 

“ What do you want? ” said she, in, oh, such a tone 
of voice. “ You ’ve about killed my ’Tildy with 
your capers, and now I won’t have you hanging 
round the house. If you don’t clear out this min- 
ute, I ’ll set the dog on to you.” 

We ran every step of the way home. 

“ Oh, my,” gasped Beth, “ was n’t she awful? ’.’ 

That afternoon we went huckleberrying. 

The summer passed, and there was no school, 
but ’Tildy was getting better slowly before I left 
Tuckertown. I went up to bid her good-by the 
day of the county fair, when Beth said her mother 
would be sure to be out, and I told her how sorry 
I was for everything I had done to annoy her. 


A TERM AT THE TUCKERTOWN SCHOOL 33 


’Tildy said that her uncle had invited her to spend 
the winter in New York, and she was going to wait 
till she was a little older before she tried to teach 
school again. 

I add a letter which I received about a month 
after I got home. It was from Beth, and read: 

Dear Mary Jane : You know I promised to write you 
what the new teacher was like. Well, she is a DRAGON. 

The Committee was determined to have no more such 
doings as we had while ’Tildy was here, and they put an 
advertisement in the paper for the crossest woman in 
America. Guess you would think they had found her, if 
you were here now. She begins the morning exercises by 
whipping all the big boys. I don’t mind that so much as 
some other things, though. She has got plenty of dis- 
cipline. We don’t climb on the roof, recesses, any more. 
We don’t put toads in her lunch basket. I don’t like her. 
I don’t think she is a very good teacher for she don’t 
explain things clear. I don’t think we get on as well as 
we did when we had ’Tildy. I told Deacon Green so. He 
laughed. All the mothers like her. 

Your affectionate friend, Elizabeth Hall. 

P. S. — I don’t know for certain that they advertised 
for Miss Clarke, but everything else is just as I have said. 
Honest injun. 


3 


CHAPTER IV 


THE SPICERS COWS 



HEY had lots of cows, the Spicers had, — 


and they passed most of their time in our 


garden. The reason they did n’t stay in 


the pasture was because the fences were all broken 
down; for the Spicers were the most shiftless folks 
in Tuckertown. Why I cared about the cows, was 
because I had to drive ’em out. 

It was the summer that Lucy was sick, and Dot 
and I were sent to grandpa’s. 

Well, one day, grandpa said, — 

“If those cows get into my corn again, I ’ll drive 
’em up to the pound.” 

“ What ’s the pound? ” asked Dot. 

“ It ’s a pen,” said grandpa, “ where you can 
drive any cattle you find on your land; and the 
owner can’t get them out without paying a fine.” 

“ Oh, I think that ’s elegant! ” said I. “ I know 
lots of people’s cows I should like to get into the 
pound.” 


THE SPICERS’ COWS 


35 


When grandpa went out, I said I would go and 
tell Sarah Spicer just what he had said. 

“ Now, Mary Jane, you just stay where you are. 
You want your fingers in everybody’s pies.” It 
was Aunt Jane — you might know — who said that. 

I might have answered that she was so sparing 
with hers (especially mince) that I never could 
touch them . But I did n’t. I often think of real 
smart things, and it ’s mean that I can’t say them. 

But, I declare, there is never any use at all in my 
arguing with Aunt Jane; for, when I get the best 
of her, she always stiffens up and says: “ There, 
that will do, Mary Jane! Not another word! ” 

Besides, it is n’t right to answer back. So I just 
said nothing, but took Dot and marched straight off 
to the Spicers’. 

We found Sarah and Sam playing in front of 
their house. Mercy me ! I never saw such a gone- 
to-wreck-and-ruined place. Half the window- 
panes smashed, and the shingles coming off, and 
the wall broken down, and not so much as a path 
up to the front door! I suppose that is so that 
folks will go to the back door, as Aunt Jane did 
that day I went there with her and found the hens 
picking up the crumbs in the kitchen. I should 
have thought Mrs. Spicer would be ashamed of 


36 


THE SPICERS’ COWS 


that, wouldn’t you? But she wasn’t! She said 
the hens were company for her, and, besides, they 
“ saved sweeping.” 

Aunt Jane says Sarah Spicer’s “not a pretty- 
behaved little girl,” and I should n’t think she 
was. So saucy! And she swings her skirts when 
she walks, and it ’s real aggravating. Besides 
that, she makes up faces at real nice folks. Beth 
Hall and I turned round quick once and caught 
her at it. 

I thought she was looking more saucy than ever 
on this particular day, and I determined to be very 
dignified and distant. 

“ How d’ ye do, Mary Jane? ” said she. 

“ How d’ ye do, Miss Spicer? ” said I. 

“Mercy me, Mary Jane, what airs!” said she. 
“ It ’s no use to put ’em on here in Tuckertown, I 
can tell you, for folks know all about you.” 

“ There, that will do,” I said, as like Aunt Jane 
as ever I could. “ I only came over here to tell you 
that we are going to have your cows put in the 
pound the very next time we find ’em in our 
garden.” 

“Poh!” cried out that Hop-o-my-thumb of a 
Sam. “ Your grandfather has said so lots of 
times, but he never does.” 





“how d'ye DO, MARY JANE?" §AID SHE. 

“how d'ye do, miss spicer, said i." — Page 86. 




THE SPICERS’ COWS 


37 


“ Does n’t dare to ! ” snapped Sarah. 

I was just boiling mad. The idea of my being 
treated so by those low Spicers! 

“ Dare to? ” said I. “I wonder who you think 
would be afraid of such a poor, shiftless set as you 
are? My grandfather says your farm does n’t 
raise anything but weeds and potato bugs. But 
I ’ll tell him it raises plenty of ‘ sarce ’ besides.” 

And then I took Dot’s hand, and just ran for 
home, so as not to give Sarah a chance to have the 
last word. 

Oh, but don’t I ’spise her! 

Well, that afternoon Dot and I went into the 
barn to play. We played that we were angels, and 
made the loveliest crowns of burrs, and real nice 
wings out of newspapers. When we wanted to 
fly, we went to the top of the loft, and flew down 
to the hay on the barn floor; but we did n’t care to 
fly much, it was so much nicer to bounce up and 
down on the clouds — I mean the hay — and play 
on our harps and sing. 

We were just in the midst of it, and enjoying 
the fun with all our might, when Aunt Jane 
screamed out, — 

“Mary Jane! Mary Jane! The cows are in the 
garden. Run and drive them out.” 


38 


THE SPICERS’ COWS 


“ Is n’t that mean! ” said I. “ The idea of ask- 
ing an angel to drive cows! ” 

“ Play they are evil spirits,” suggested Hiram, 
who was cleaning out the stalls. 

“ No, they ’re not,” said I. “ They are just noth- 
ing but cows. Besides, it makes me hot to run after 
them, and angels ought never to be hot.” 

Then Aunt Jane began to scream at me again, 
and of course I had to go. 

“It’s too bad!” cried Dot. “Those Spicers’ 
cows spoil all our fun.” 

“ I ’ll tell you what,” said I, after I had shoo’d 
them into the road, “I’m going to drive ’em right 
up to the pound. I ’ll show that Sarah Spicer — ! ” 

“Why, Mary Jane Hunt!” cried silly Dot, 
“ what ’ll grandpa say? I won’t go.” 

“ Say? Why, that he is much obliged to me, to 
be sure. And if you don’t come right along, I ’ll 
take off my little crown and stick the prickles into 
you, miss! ” 

That ’s what I said, but I knew I could n’t get 
the crown out of my hair — the old burrs stuck so. 
I got some out, though, and tied my hat on, set 
my wings against the wall, and got a stick to drive 
the cows with. Dot trotted after me as meek as a 
lamb. 


THE SPICERS’ COWS 


39 


It wasn’t far to the pound; but there was one 
cow and her calf that would n’t hurry, and, besides, 
we walked very slowly along the sunny parts of 
the road, and rested every time we came to a shady 
place; so it was late in the afternoon when we left 
the pound and turned to come home. 

“ Let ’s go round by the Spicers’,” said I ; “ I don’t 
care if it is farther. Perhaps we shall see Sarah.” 

“ I don’t want to see Sarah,” answered Dot. “ I 
saw enough of her this morning. ’Sides Aunt Jane 
said if we got through supper in time she would 
take us to see Mrs. Green, and you know she is 
going to give us some pears.” 

But I was bound to go past the Spicers’; so I 
said: “ We ’ll hurry, and go ’cross lots, and I know 
we sha’n’t be late,” and I had my way. 

We went quite a distance by the road, and then 
through Mr. Plall’s cornfield and the woods beyond, 
and came out right in the Spicers’ pasture. The 
sun had just gone down, and there was a bright 
light behind the row of old jagged apple trees 
along by the stone wall, which was so broken down 
in places that it was an easy matter for the cows 
to stray away. Dot and I noticed that there was 
only one left now in the pasture. 

“ I hope Sarah and Sam will have a good time 


40 


THE SPICERS’ COWS 


hunting after the others; and good enough for 
’em,” said I. “ Perhaps her father is just scolding 
her now for letting them stray away.” 

“Well, he isn’t, for there he is now.” Dot 
pointed, and I saw Sarah in the swing on the but- 
ternut tree in front of their house, and her father 
was swinging her up ever so high. 

When she saw us she jumped out and ran to the 
fence. 

4 4 Hope you ’ll find your cows to-night, Sarah,” 
said I. 

44 You had better go for ’em,” chimed in Dot. 

44 Hope you ’ll find yours ” retorted Sarah. 44 If 
you don’t keep ’em out of our garden we are going 
to drive ’em to the pound.” 

44 Te, he,” giggled Sam. 

What could they mean? I wondered, as I hur- 
ried on, if our cows had got into their garden ; and 
it worried me so that I told Dot. 

44 1 don’t believe it at all,” said Dot. 44 They 
just wanted to scare us and get even with us.” 

Although we hurried so, it was late when we got 
home. We were afraid that supper would be all 
over, and Aunt Jane would scold us for being late. 
But though the table was set, and grandpa was 
home from work, no one had sat down to it. 


THE SPICERS’ COWS 


41 


“Been waiting for the milk,” said Aunt Jane; 
“ but it ’s no use to wait any longer. I ’ll use 
morning’s milk.” 

“ Yes,” said grandpa, who was washing his 
hands at the sink. “ Do let ’s have supper. Chil- 
dren, have you seen the cows? ” 

“Why, no,” I answered, “not ours; but Dot 
and I drove the Spicers’ cows up to the pound.” 

“ Those that were in our garden? ” demanded 
Aunt Jane, looking straight at me. 

I nodded. 

“ Well, of all the little mischief-makers! Those 
were our cows.” 

“My gracious, goodness me!” said I; “and 
grandpa ’s got to pay a fine to get his own cows out 
of the pound? Oh, dear! I do hope Sarah Spicer 
won’t find out about it.” 

Dot and I didn’t go to Mrs. Green’s for pears 
that night, I can tell you. Instead, we went to bed 
an hour earlier than usual; but Sarah Spicer does n’t 
know anything about it; and after Aunt Jane went 
downstairs Dot and I had a real good time playing 
angel. 


CHAPTER V 


MRS. POLLY ANN BUNCE S BEST CAP 


M RS. POLLY ANN BUNCE is Beth 
Hall’s grandmother, and she wanted to 
go to the convention at Providence. 

“ ’T is n’t likely, ’Liz’beth,” she said to Beth’s 
mother, “ that I ’ll ever live to see many more of 
these anniversaries, and as I am not so poorly as 
usual, this year, I think I ’d like to go.” 

“ Well,” said Mrs. Hall, “ I have been counting 
on spending a day with Lucius’s wife, and I might 
as well go now and take you to the convention.” 

“ I want to go to the convention, too,” cried Beth. 
“ And anyhow, mother, if I don’t go to the conven- 
tion I should like to go to Providence.” 

Her mother looked doubtful for a moment, and 
then said, — 

“ Well, well, I ’ll see about it. We shall not go 
till next week Thursday, so don’t begin to tease now, 
child.” 

By Wednesday Mrs. Hall had decided to take 
Beth with her to Providence, and, as Dot and I 


MRS. POLLY ANN BUNCE’S BEST CAP 43 

needed new shoes, she offered to let us join the 
party. 

There were quite a number of Tuckertown people 
going into town that day. Mrs. Hall and Mrs. 
Polly Ann Bunce went in the early train; but, as 
there was not room for us in the carriage, Beth, 
Dot, and I were to follow in the next one, under the 
care of Mrs. Ithamar Tibbetts. 

Mrs. Hall said that this was a very nice arrange- 
ment, but Beth and I did n’t think so at all. We 
didn’t like Mrs. Ithamar Tibbetts. Aunt Jane 
said that I had a prejudice against her, and that 
it was very wrong, because she is a good, conscien- 
tious woman. Well, I suppose she is; but anyway 
I could n’t bear her. Beth and I consoled ourselves 
with the thought that when we got to the station 
we could run away from her and get a seat in an- 
other car. But she kept an eye on us every minute, 
and finally seated herself directly behind us. 

“ I don’t care,” I whispered to Beth. “ In the 
big depot at Providence I know we can get away 
from her. We will hurry out of the cars ahead, 
and there will be so much noise we sha’n’t hear her 
call after us. While we run out into the street she 
will have to stay and look after her baggage; that 
is, if you know the way, Beth.” 


44 MRS. POLLY ANN BUNGE’S BEST CAP 


“ Oh, yes, I know the way,” said Beth. 

We did n’t have any baggage except Mrs. Polly 
Ann Bunce’s best cap, in a box, which Mrs. Hall 
had given us to carry f or her. 

Well, everything happened exactly as we had 
planned; and very soon Mrs. Tibbetts and we had 
parted company. “ Now,” said Beth, “ let ’s walk 
slowly and look into all the shop windows. I want 
to spend my money right off.” 

Beth had a dollar, and Dot and I each had fifty 
cents. Mrs. Hall had the money for our shoes. 

I had made up my mind to buy a lovely fan with 
a shepherdess painted on it, when Dot suddenly 
cried: “Why, where is Mrs. Polly Ann Bunce’s 
best cap? ” 

Sure enough, where was it? 

“ It has gone on to Boston in the train,” said 
Beth, faintly. “We must have left it in the cars 
in our hurry to get away from Mrs. Tibbetts.” 

“ Oh, how Mrs. Polly Ann Bunce will look with- 
out any cap ! ” giggled Dot. 

“ And how do you think you will look when we 
have to tell that we lost it? ” snapped Beth. 

Dot of course began to cry. 

“ ’T was n’t my fault, Beth Hall. I ’m a real 
little girl. It was your fault and Mary Jane’s.” 


MRS. POLLY ANN BUNCE’S BEST CAP 45 

“ I suppose we were all to blame,” said I. “ But 
no matter, we can buy her a new cap; we have 
money enough, I ’m sure.” 

“ Yes, but I had rather buy candy than caps,” 
whined Dot. 

“Mary Jane,” said Beth, “if you and Dot will 
give your money we will have two dollars together. 
How much do you suppose caps cost? ” 

“ I dunno,” answered Dot; “ I never buy ’em.” 

At that we all laughed; and Beth said they were 
ugly things anyhow, and ought not to be more than 
a dollar and a half. In that case, we would have 
fifty cents left to spend. 

Pretty soon we came to a place where they had 
bonnets in a window, and we thought they would 
be likely to keep caps there too. 

“Mary Jane, you ought to ask,” said Beth; 
“ you are the oldest.” 

“ I ’m only two weeks older than you,” said I, 
“ and I ’ve done enough things to make up for 
those two w T eeks long ago.” 

“Well, if not the oldest, the youngest, then; 
the middle person never does anything,” Beth said, 
with a nod at Dot. 

There are folks who slip out of everything, and 
Beth Hall is one. I was glad when Dot said, — 


46 MRS. POLLY ANN BUNCE’S BEST CAP 


“ But it is n’t my grandma’s cap. I think Beth 
ought to ask for it.” 

“ Come, Mary Jane,” cried Beth, “ I dare you to 
do it.” 

Of course I had to do it then. “ I guess I ’m not 
afraid,” I said, and walked right into the shop. 

There were two girls behind the show case, and 
I said to one of them, “ I ’ve come to look at 
caps.” 

They looked at each other and began to laugh in 
a most disagreeable way, and one of them asked: 
“For yourself, madam?” 

I knew she was making fun of me, and was just 
going to say that we would go to some other shop, 
when Dot burst out, — 

“ Why, Mary Jane ’s only a little girl. She don’t 
wear caps. It ’s for Mrs. Polly Ann Bunce,. and 
she is so old she hain’t got any hair and has to w r ear 
false teeth. Why, what are you nudging me so for, 
Beth? Y r ou said yourself that last winter when we 
had that cold snap she took her teeth out and put ’em 
in a glass of water one night, and in the morning 
she couldn’t eat any breakfast, ’cause they were 
frozen in. Oh, she is awful old, is Mrs. Polly Ann 
Bunce, and she must have a cap.” 

“Well, you know, there are a great many dif- 


MRS. POLLY ANN BUNCE’S BEST CAP 47 


ferent styles of caps,” said the girl to me. “ What 
kind do you want? ” 

“We want a cheap kind,” answered Beth. 

I had no idea there were so many diff erent kinds 
of caps. There was one very fancy one with wheat 
sticking out of the ruche, and a bunch of grapes on 
one side in a bow made of pink ribbon. We thought 
this cap would be very expensive, — it had so much 
trimming on it, — but it turned out to be the very 
cheapest one in the shop. I suppose that was be- 
cause the ribbon was so soiled. I liked better the 
black one with the two lace tabs hanging down 
behind and a purple bow on the top, — but just 
think! it was seventeen dollars! Real lace, you 
see. 

There was still another, with just a ruche and 
plain muslin strings, which looked, somehow, for all 
the world like Mrs. Bunce; but it was two dollars 
and would take every penny we had. So Beth took 
up the one with the grapes again, and said to me, — 

“ Oh, what shall we do, Mary Jane? I ’m afraid 
grandma won’t like this cap.” 

“ Did she send you to buy one for her? ” asked 
the second girl, who was leaning over the counter 
and staring at us. 

“Why, no!” Beth answered; “but we lost her 


48 MRS. POLLY ANN BUNCE’S BEST CAP 


cap coming from Tuckertown. We left it in the 
cars, and now we have got to buy her another.” 

“The poor little things!” said the first girl. 
“ They are afraid to go home without a cap. 
Could n’t we fix up one for them for a dollar and 
a half, Eliza? There ’s the one that was begun for 
Mrs. Jonas Jones; with a ruche instead of the lace 
it will look very nice. I dare say they will get a 
scolding for losing the cap.” 

“ Yes, indeed! ” put in Beth, and I never saw her 
look so wretched before or since. “You had better 
believe my grandma will scold, with no cap to wear 
all day and she a-visiting, too. I dare say we won’t 
be allowed to have any dinner at all, and I ’m so 
hungry.” 

“ So am I,” I said mournfully, and Dot looked 
ready to cry. 

“ There now, you just cheer up, darlings! ” cried 
the one called Eliza, with a look at Dot, whose lips 
were quivering beautifully, “ we will fix up a nice 
cap for you, all for one dollar and a half.” 

While she was at work, we looked again at the 
other cap. “ I don’t believe my grandma would 
wear it,” began Beth. “ It ’s an awful queer-look- 
ing thing, anyhow! ” 

“Isn’t it? — with those horrid grapes and that 


MRS. POLLY ANN BUNCE’S BEST CAP 49 

wheat and faded ribbon. I guess your grandma 
would think we have n’t very good taste, but any- 
body would like this one,” said I, and the girl who 
had just finished it held it up, exclaiming: “ There, 
that ’s a bargain for you at one dollar and a half! ” 
“ I should say it was,” cried an awful voice from 
the door. “ Eliza Shaw, what do you mean by 
selling that cap for a dollar and a half? ” 

We saw at once that the new-comer was the 
owner of the shop, and that she was as mad as a 
hornet, besides. 

“ They can’t pay but a dollar and a half,” said the 
girl, but her face turned very red as she spoke. 

“Well, let them have the one with the grapes and 
the pink ribbon, then, that ’s a dollar and a half, and 
the only one in the store for that ridiculous price! ” 
The girl put the nice cap she had made for us in 
a box, and held out the other one, saying: “ Well, 
this is the best I can do for you, then, after all.” 

Beth looked at me, and I looked at Beth, while 
Dot said : “ I ’m sure it ’s good enough.” 

“ I hope your grandma will think so,” said I to 
Beth. 

“ Well, maybe she will,” sighed Beth, gloomily. 
“ She called me an ungrateful girl, the other day, 
’cause I said I would n’t wear that sunbonnet 


4 


50 MRS. POLLY ANN BUNGE’S BEST CAP 


mother bought for me. So I hope she won’t despise 
this costly, handsome cap.” 

“ Yes, a nice, handsome cap, with grapes and lots 
of trimming on it! ” added Dot. 

While the girl had been tying the cap up for us, 
we had been leaning on the show case, and, just at 
that moment, the glass gave way with a crash be- 
neath our arms. 

“ Oh, my! what a thin glass it must have been,” 
said Beth, turning pale. 

“My gracious! Thin!” cried the first girl. 
“ I ’m afraid you will find it will cost you enough 
to have it mended. It will be ten dollars, if it ’s a 
cent.” 

“ But I never had so much money as that in my 
life! ” cried Beth. “ We can’t pay for it! ” 

The woman who had refused to let us have the cap 
now came tearing up to us, exclaiming, — 

“ Give me every penny you have, and then clear 
out of my shop ! ” She seized Dot as she spoke, and 
we soon found ourselves standing outside on the 
pavement, with no money and no cap. 

“Oh, what a dreadful, dreadful woman!” cried 
Beth, “ and was n’t she just as mad as a hatter! ” 

“You mean as mad as a capper ,” said I; but 
Beth was too frightened to see the joke. 


MRS. POLLY ANN BUNCE’S BEST CAP 51 

In fact we were all half crying by the time we 
reached the house. We wondered if Mrs. Bunce 
would wear her bonnet all day, and Dot said she 
would lend her her pocket handkerchief, and wel- 
come. But, in any case, we were prepared for a 
scolding. 

“Why, where on earth have you been?” asked 
Beth’s mother as we slunk into the room. “ Mrs. 
Tibbetts said you hurried off so she could n’t keep 
up with you.” 

“ Why-ee — ” squealed Dot, “ Mrs. Polly Ann 
Bunce has got her cap on! ” 

I raised my eyes from the carpet, and lo and be- 
hold! there sat Mrs. Bunce, and on her head was 
the very cap we thought we had left in the cars. 

“Yes; Mrs. Ithamar Tibbetts brought it,” said 
Mrs. Bunce serenely. “ The day would be spoiled 
for me without my cap. She said you children 
did n’t want the trouble of it, so she brought it her- 
self. I ’m sure I am glad I did not have to wait for 
it till you got here, though Lucius’s wife said she 
would lend me a cap; but, bless me, it was such 
a smart-looking one, I should never think of put- 
ting it on. Pink ribbons on me! Oh!” gasped 
Grandma Bunce, with a horrified look. 

Beth and I often wonder whether Mrs. Ithamar 


52 MRS. POLLY ANN BUNCE’S BEST CAP 


Tibbetts brought that cap from Tuckertown, or 
whether we left it in the cars and she found it; but, 
as near as we could find out, she never told any one 
how we ran away from her in the depot at Provi- 
dence, nor how near Mrs. Polly Ann Bunce came 
to losing her cap. 

And, somehow, we have liked Mrs. Tibbetts a 
great deal better since then, and I, for one, have 
concluded that it is very silly to take a prejudice to a 
good, conscientious woman. 


CHAPTER VI 


BEING ARTISTIC 

I T was a few weeks after we had that adventure 
with Mrs. Polly Ann Bunce’s best cap that 
Aunt Jane and Aunt Prue went for a day’s 
shopping to Providence. 

“ I don’t see how I can go, and leave those two 
children,” I had heard Aunt Jane say, the evening 
before, when I had gone upstairs; “ they are sure 
to get into all sorts of mischief.” 

“ Well,” answered Aunt Prue, “ it don’t seem to 
me that our being here prevents that,” and then 
everybody laughed as if it were a good joke, and 
grandpa said, — 

“ Oh, you can go if you wish to. I ’ll look after 
the chicks; I ’ll see to ’em.” 

“ Yes, grandpa ’ll see to us,” piped up Dot, like 
a little goose. I ’ve always noticed it ’s best not to 
let grown people know it, if you wish them to do 
things. 

Said Aunt Jane: “ Yes, you like to have grandpa 


54 


BEING ARTISTIC 


see to you, don’t you? You know he will let you do 
about as you please.” Then she went on in her 
voice for the grown-up. “ The fact is, father, you 
have n’t any d-i-s-c-i— p-l-i-n-e. ( W e always 
spell words when we don’t wish Dot to under- 
stand.) I ’ve half a mind not to stir a step.” 

Oh, dear, I was so afraid she wouldn’t; but I 
never let on for a moment that I wanted to have 
them go. 

The next morning was dark and foggy, but 
cleared off just in time* and at last I had the joy 
of seeing Aunt Jane and Aunt Prue driving off 
towards the station. 

Now I always like to have the folks away, and no 
one round the house to put me out of sorts, but there 
was a particular reason besides that. The fact is, I 
had been dying for ever so long to fix up the parlor, 
for it was such an ugly, countrified room, and I 
meant to make it look real artistic. I knew I could, 
for I had been to Gerty Whyte’s house, and her 
sister is an artist. I had asked Aunt Jane over and 
over again to let me do it, but she always said she 
did n’t believe I could improve it much, and it did 
well enough for country folks as it was. 

It may have done well enough, but anyhow it 
was dreadfully ugly. The carpet had a great deal 


BEING ARTISTIC 


55 


of red in it and a centrepiece that Dot said looked 
like a lobster on a platter. 

We were looking at it and wishing Aunt Jane 
would buy another, when Beth Hall, whom we had 
asked to come and help us, opened the door. 

“ Well, Mary Jane,” she began, “ what are you 
going to do first? ” 

“ I ’d like to take up this horrid old carpet. Dot, 
would you dare to? ” 

“Of course she would n’t, nor you either.” And 
Beth gave that aggravating laugh of hers. 

“ I would too, but I sha’n’t, because it ’s too much 
trouble. But let me tell you about Gerty Whyte’s 
parlor. In the first place, there is n’t any carpet at 
all on the floor, only rugs, — not dowdy old rag 
rugs, like your mother makes, — but pretty ones.” 

I was out of sorts, and it was Beth’s fault, be- 
cause she laughed. If I had n’t been out of sorts 
I never would have said that about her mother’s 
rugs, for I knew she thought they were beautiful. 

“ Pooh ! I should think you would keep tripping 
on them,” sniffed Beth. The idea of her sniffing 
at a real artist’s house. 

“You most likely would if you are a clumsy 
bumpkin,” said I. “ Then they have didoes on all 
the walls.” 


56 


BEING ARTISTIC 


“Didoes? Well we can have them even in 
Tuckertown. And pray what may didoes be?” 
giggled Beth. 

“You needn’t laugh, for it just shows your 
ignorance. Didoes are — well it ’s the thing that 
goes round the wall, pretty near the floor, and the 
frieze is the thing at the top.” 

“We had a freeze in all our rooms last Janu- 
ary,” put in Beth. “ Below zero everywhere, 
except in the kitchen. Come, don’t spend any 
more time talking, Mary Jane; let’s begin to 
fix up.” 

“ Well, let ’s fix this cabinet first,” said I. 

“ Cabinet! ” cried Beth and Dot, in one breath, 
“ why, that is the whatnot; ” and Beth went on, — 

“You needn’t look so patronizing. If folks 
don’t call it a whatnot, they call it an effigy or elegy 
or etigy or some French word that means whatnot; 
anyhow, it is n’t a cabinet.” 

“ Well, no matter, let ’s pretend it ’s a cabinet and 
put china on it, because that ’s artistic.” 

“ I won’t,” said Beth. “ It ’s a whatnot, and 
nothing but a whatnot.” 

“ It ’s a cabinet,” said I, “ and not a whatnot at 
all.” 

“ I ’ll leave it to Dot,” cried Beth. 


BEING ARTISTIC 


57 


“ Pooh! Dot is n’t your sister. I guess she won’t 
mind you,” said I. 

“ Dot Hunt, is n’t it a whatnot? ” screamed Beth. 

Dot looked at Beth and then she looked at me, 
and I scowled at her, I can tell you. 

“ Well,” said she, “ it ’s a whatnot now ; hut when 
Mary J ane fixes it up, I guess it will be a cabinet.” 

“ That ’s fair,” said Beth. “ Do you agree to 
that, Mary Jane? ” 

I said I did. “ Let ’s take the things off this old 
whatnot, so we can have our nice new cabinet,” I 
proposed, and then we all went to work. 

We put the things in a basket. Daguerreotypes, 
shells, the wax pond lily, Parian pitcher, the vases 
from the dollar store and all. There was a picture 
of Uncle John Jacobs hanging over the fireplace, 
and I took it down and hung it at one side with 
a plate stuck at one corner, and some feathers out of 
Aunt Jane’s peacock feather duster, behind. That 
side of the mantel did look ever so much like Ger- 
trude’s, and I said so. 

“ What did she have at the other end? ” asked 
Beth. 

“ She had a big brownish jug, sort of a squatty 
one, and it was full of sunflowers. The feathers 
flopped one way and the sunflowers the other.” 


58 


BEING ARTISTIC 


“ Lots of sunflowers in our cornfield,” said Beth. 
“ Our chickens are artistic, and they like them.” 

Dot said she would run and get some if we only 
had a jug. 

“ Might use the bean-pot,” giggled Beth. 
“ Sounds just like one.” 

“ It don’t, and I don’t care if it does. It did look 
something like a bean-pot, too, now I think of it. 
Well, we can have that” So I sent Dot for the 
sunflowers and when they were arranged, Beth con- 
fessed that the mantel-shelf looked very artistic. 
The cabinet, too, was a great success, and I felt 
encouraged. 

Gerty’s sister had a lot of her pictures tacked up, 
sort of careless, on the wall. One was of Venus de 
Milo. It was a real queer-looking thing, and I told 
Gerty I did n’t believe any lady ever looked so bad 
as that, but she said it must be right, because her 
sister had drawn it from life. Anyhow, I think the 
colored plates in the old Godey books are prettier, 
and I brought a stack of them down from the 
garret, and we nailed them round on the walls. 

By noon the room was finished, and it looked real 
nice. Anyhow, it looked a good deal like Gerty’s. 
I found a spinning-wheel upstairs which I put 
in the corner near the fireplace. I told Beth I 



^BETH CONFESSED THAT THE MANTEL-SHELF LOOKED VERY 




r 


BEING ARTISTIC 


59 


wished we had something as nice for the other 
corner. 

“ Why not get the churn,” said she, nudging Dot. 

But the best of the whole was the dido. I made 
it out of the daguerreotypes, for we found a whole 
boxful up in the garret, besides those that were on 
the whatnot. There was grandpa in a queer coat 
and the most awful dickey, and grandma with a 
pointed waist and a brooch as big as a platter. 
There was Uncle John Jacobs’s first wife’s children, 
and grandma’s baby that died in a fit. The queerest 
was one of Aunt Jane and Aunt Prue when they 
were children, with ringlets and pantalets, and look- 
ing scared out of their wits. I would like to see 
them look scared now. It was a perfectly splendid 
dido. 

But though the room looked so nice I felt very 
uncomfortable, and I kept wondering what Aunt 
Jane would say. 

We went in wading in the brook that afternoon; 
but I did n’t have a good time. Beth and Dot kept 
taking sides against me, and then said I was cross. 
I did n’t have a good time at all. 

“ I believe you are afraid of your aunt,” said 
Beth. “ I guess she ’ll scold well.” 

“Pooh! I’m not afraid of her, but she is real 


60 


BEING ARTISTIC 


impolite and disagreeable to me sometimes,” I 
admitted. “ Just think, when I ’m visiting here. 
Once, she said I was an unregenerate child of sin.” 

“ Goodness,” cried Beth, “ I would n’t stand 
that.” 

“ It ’s swearing, is n’t it? ” said Dot. 

“ And she made me go to bed at six o’clock one 
night,” I went on. “ I guess she was sorry for it 
the next morning for she gave me a piece of apple 
pie for breakfast; but I wouldn’t touch it, and I 
was just as dignified as I could be. I would n’t 
speak all day. She said I was sulky; but that’s 
just her countrified way of expressing herself.” 

At last, just about sundown, Beth said she must 
go home. I told her we would walk part of the 
way with her. 

“ Let ’s go down and see the stage come in,” she 
proposed. “ It will be fun to see the ministers.” 

“ Why, what ministers? ” asked I. 

“ Oh, don’t you know a part of the convention 
is coming here from Providence? I suppose some 
of the ministers will come up in the stage.” 

“ Then Aunt Jane and Aunt Prue will come up 
with them,” said Dot. 

So we went down to the village and sat in a row 
on Deacon Green’s stone wall, which is just oppo- 


BEING ARTISTIC 


61 


site the stage office ; and in a few moments we saw 
the stage coming up the hill. My, wasn’t it full, 
though ! and besides the stage there were three 
wagons, all chuck-full of ministers. 

“ Oh, there ’s Dr. Brinnell, from the Centre,” 
cried Beth. “ Let ’s choose ministers. I choose 
him.” 

“ I choose that fat, jolly one looking out of the 
window,” said I. “ He is my minister.” 

“ Oh, I choose that cunning little one,” screamed 
Dot, and so loud that all the ministers heard her and 
laughed, and the little one Dot chose blushed as 
red as a beet. Then they got out of the stage, 
Aunt Jane and Aunt Prue last of all. 

I jumped off the wall then. “If we stay here, 
Aunt Jane will call us and make us go home with 
her. I wonder if she will go into the parlor right 
off,” I said, and after Beth left us I added: “ and 
I wonder if she will be mad.” 

“ Oh, my, yes,” answered Dot, “ ’course she 
will, but it wasn’t our fault. It was grandpa’s, 
’cause he did n’t see to us as he promised.” 

There was a great bustle in the kitchen, getting 
supper. Aunt Prue, in her best cap, was making 
coffee, and Aunt Jane had not changed her black 
silk for her everyday dress. She was so polite to 


62 


r 


BEING ARTISTIC 


me I knew at once she had not been in the parlor, 
and I was screwing up my courage to tell her what 
we had done, when there was a knock at the front 
door. 

“ There they come,” she exclaimed, as Aunt Prue 
flew to open it. 

“ There who comes? ” asked Dot. 

“ Why, Mr. Kipp and Dr. Jones and Mr. Holt 
and the other ministers whom we invited to stay 
with us.” 

I ran out into the hall just in time to see a long 
line of black legs filing into the parlor; and as I 
peeped through the crack of the door I could plainly 
see the smile that passed over each face, while, as 
true as you live, Dot’s minister was looking out of 
the window and giggling. 

As for Aunt Prue, she is as blind as a bat without 
her specs, and never noticed the changes that had 
taken place in the room. 

But just then, Aunt Jane in her rustling, black 
silk came sailing from the dining-room into the 
parlor. 

She began to speak — and stopped. 

Her eyes fell upon the bean-pot. 

“ What under the canopy,” said she to Aunt 
Prue, “ have those children been about? ” and then 


BEING ARTISTIC 


63 


everybody began to laugh, and Dot, who had 
followed Aunt Jane from the kitchen, cried 
out, — 

“ You need n’t laugh, ’cause Mary Jane says it ’s 
real artistic.” 

I was n’t allowed to go to the tea-table, but in the 
evening my minister — the one I had chosen — 
asked to see me ; and I told him all about Gertrude’s 
house, and how I had tried to make our parlor as 
cheerful and pretty as hers was. 

That night I had a dream. I thought I was in 
the parlor, and the ministers had gone, and the lights 
were out. All at once I noticed that the sunflowers 
and the peacock f eathers were alive and whispering 
together. 

Said a gossipy old sunflower with her head on one 
side, — 

“ Did you ever hear of anything so ridiculous as 
our being here in this bean-pot? It is plain to be 
seen that those city children can’t tell a sunflower 
from a bean- vine.” 

“ Don’t speak of those city children,” answered 
a peacock’s feather, with a shiver. “ If you lived in 
the house with them, you would know how they be- 
have. As for that Mary Jane, she is a trial to her 
aunt, I can tell you. It ’s all very well to try and 


64 


BEING ARTISTIC 


make one’s home beautiful; but with a bad heart 
and selfish nature that is impossible.” 

“ Ah, yes; ah, yes,” murmured the sunflower, “ it 
takes a deal of sunshine to make things beautiful. 
I Ve lived in it all my life and I ought to know.” 

In the morning, when I told my dream to Aunt 
Prue, she said it was the first one she had ever heard 
with a moral to it; but Dot declares the sunflower 
and peacock’s feathers only repeated what my min- 
ister had said, when I told him about Gerty Whyte’s 
house, and how I had tried to make ours look just 
like it. 


CHAPTER VII 


A VISIT TO MARY JANE FROM THE PEN OF 

BETH HALL 



HEN Mary Jane Hunt left Tucker- 


town last summer she invited me to 
come to the city and make her a visit. 


“ If I were sure Mrs. Hunt wanted you, ’Liz- 
’beth, I would like to have you go,” said mother, 
“ for it ’s good for young folks to widen their hori- 
zon, now and then, and you would enjoy seeing the 
sights.” 

I did n’t care anything about my horizon, but I 
did want most awfully to see the sights; but, al- 
though I teased and teased, mother would n’t let 
me go. 

There was a great church quarrel in Tuckertown 
that year, but our folks were n’t in it. The trouble 
began in the choir, who could n’t agree about the 
tunes. On some Sundays the organist would n’t 
play, and on others the singers would n’t sing. 
Once they all stopped short in the middle of 
“ Greenland’s Icy Mountains,” and it was real 


5 


66 


A VISIT TO MARY JANE 


exciting at church, for you never knew what 
might happen before you came out; hut folks 
said it was disgraceful, and I suppose it was. 
They complained of the minister because he did n’t 
put a stop to it ; so at last he took sides with 
the organist and dismissed the choir, and declared 
we would have congregatidnal singing in the 
future. ’Most everybody thought that would be 
the end of the trouble; but, mercy! it was hardly 
the beginning! Things grew worse and worse. 
To begin with, the congregation would n’t sing. 
Y r ou see, they had had a choir so long people 
were sort of afraid to let out their voices; and, be- 
sides, there was Elvira Tucker, who had studied 
music in Boston, just ready to make fun of them 
if they did. For she was one of the choir, and they 
were all as mad as hornets. 

In fact, the whole Tucker family were offended. 
They said folks did n’t appreciate Elvira, nor what 
she had done, since she returned from Boston, to 
raise the standard in Tuckertown. I don’t know, I 
am sure, what they meant by that, for I never saw 
Elvira raise any standard; but I do know that 
they were real mad with the minister, and lots 
of people took their side and called ’emselves 
“ Tuckerites.” 


-FROM THE PEN OF BETH HALL 67 


You see, the Tuckers stand very high in Tucker- 
town, and other people try to be just as like them 
as they can. They were first settlers, for one thing, 
and have the most money, for another; and they lay 
down the law generally. The post-office and the 
station are at their end of the village. They decide 
when the sewing-societies shall meet, and the fairs 
take place, and the strawberry festivals come off. 
If there is to be a picnic, they decide when we shall 
go, and where we shall go, and just who shall sit in 
each wagon. If anybody is sick, Mrs. Tucker visits 
’em just as regularly as the doctor, and she brings 
grapes and jelly, and is very kind, though she al- 
ways scolds the sick person for not dieting, or for 
going without her rubbers, or something of that 
sort. If mother had a hand in this story, not 
a word of all this would go down. She says they 
are very public-spirited people, and that they do a 
great deal for Tuckertown. I suppose they do; 
but I Ve heard other people say that they domineer 
much more than is agreeable. 

The people on the minister’s side were called 
“ Anti-Tuckerites ” ; but, as I said, our folks 
were n’t in the quarrel at all. The consequence of 
being on the fence was, that I could not join in the 
fun on either side, and I think it was real mean. 


r 


68 A VISIT TO MARY JANE 

Every now and then the Tuckerites would plan 
some lovely picnic or party, just so as not to invite 
the Anti-Tuckerites. Then, in turn, they would 
get up an excursion, and not invite any of the 
Tuckerites. Of course, / was n’t invited to either, 
and it was just as provoking as it could be. 

One day, when I went to school, I found that 
Elvira Tucker was going to train a choir of chil- 
dren to take the place of the old choir. 

“ I went over to call on Elvira last evening,” I 
heard Miss Green tell our school-teacher, “ and I 
found her at the piano, playing for little Nell to 
sing. It was just at dusk, and they did not see me; 
so I stood and listened, and wondered why we 
could n’t have a choir of children instead of the 
congregational singing. Elvira said she thought it 
would be lovely.” 

Now, I had been to singing-school for two 
winters, and the singing master said I had a good 
voice; so I thought I ought to belong to the choir. 

“ You can’t ’cause only Tuckerites are going to 
belong,” said ’Melia Stone. “And your folks are 
just on the fence. They aren’t one thing or 
another.” 

I could n’t stand being left out of all the fun any 
longer, so I said: “ I ’m as much a Tuckerite as 


FROM THE PEN OF BETH HALL 69 


anybody, only our folks don’t approve of making 
so much trouble about a small affair.” 

“ I want to know ! ” said Abby Ann Curtiss. 
“Well, if that’s so, I ’ll ask Miss Elvira if you 
can’t belong.” 

Mercy me! I had jumped from the fence and 
f ound myself a Tuckerite! I was sure mother would 
be real mad if she knew what I had said, for I sus- 
pected in my heart of hearts that if she had jumped 
from the fence she would have landed on the minis- 
ter’s side. I made up my mind that I would not tell 
her what had passed, for maybe, after all, Miss 
Elvira would decide that I was no real Tuckerite. 
But the very next day she sent word to me by Abby 
Ann that she would like to have me join the choir. 

I told mother that I was wanted in the children’s 
choir because I had a good voice, and I never said 
a word about being a Tuckerite. 

“ A children’s choir,” said she. “ That ’s a real 
good idea. Beautiful!” 

She never suspected how I was deceiving her. 

Well, we had real fun practising. That week we 
learned a chant and two hymns. 

One day Mrs. Green came in. 

“ How does she happen to be here? ” I heard her 
ask Elvira, with a significant look at me. 


70 


A VISIT TO MARY JANE 


“ Oh, she has a real good voice,” answered Miss 
Elvira, laughing. “ Most of the children who can 
sing are on the other side ; besides, from something 
she said to Abby Ann I think at heart the Halls 
sympathize with us.” 

What would my folks have said to that? I felt 
half sick of the whole affair, and went home and 
teased mother to let me go to the city and visit 
Mary Jane. 

I shall never forget the Sunday I sang in the 
choir. Miss Elvira played for us on the organ, 
for when the real organist heard that only the 
Tuckerite children were to belong to it she refused 
to play. Everybody seemed surprised to see me in 
it, and even Dr. Scott looked at me in a mournful 
sort of a way, as if he thought the Halls had gone 
over to the enemy. What troubled me most, though, 
was the look mother gave me when she first realized 
that the choir was formed only of the Tuckerites, 
and that she had not found it out before. 

' But in spite of all this I enjoyed the singing. 
We sat, long rows of us, in the singers’ seats up in 
the gallery. After the hymn was given out and 
we stood up, Miss Elvira nodded to me and whis- 
pered: “ NTow, don’t be afraid, girls; sing as loud 
as you can.” 






FROM THE PEN OF BETH HALL 71 

Mercy, how we did sing! twice as loud as the 
grown-up choir. Luella Howe said, afterwards, 
that we looked as if we were trying to swallow the 
meeting-housee 

But I never sang but just that once in the choir, 
for the next Sunday I spent with Mary Jane, in 
Boston. 

The way it happened was this : That night 
mother sent me to bed right after supper, as a 
punishment for not telling her about the choir 
before I joined it; and as I undressed she had a 
great deal to say about the defects in my character. 
She talked to me a long time and went downstairs 
at last without kissing me good-night. I was think- 
ing what a miserable sinner I must be, and trying 
to cry about it, when I heard her go into the sitting- 
room and say to father, who was reading his paper 
there, — 

“ I ’ve just put ’Liz’beth to bed; but I don’t 
know as she is so much to blame, after all. If grown 
people act in such a way you can’t expect much of 
the children. I declare, I wish I could send her away 
from Tuckertown till this choir business is settled.” 

“ Well,” says father, “ why don’t you let her go 
and see Hunt’s girl? You know she invited her, 
and ’Liz’beth wants to go.” 


72 


A VISIT TO MARY JANE 


“Oh, no,” says mother; “they have so much 
sickness there, I ’m afraid she would be in the way.” 
And she ended her sentence by shutting the door 
with a slam. 

I got right up and sat on the stairs for a long 
time, to see if they would say anything more about 
my visiting Mary Jane; but they did n’t. Father 
began to talk of the black heifer he had just bought, 
and then about the Presidential campaign, and 
several other unimportant things like that. Not a 
word about me. 

But I began early the next morning and teased 
steadily to go and visit Mary Jane. Finally, Tues- 
day morning, mother said I might write Mary 
Jane, that if it were perfectly agreeable to her 
mother I would now make them the promised visit; 
and, if I heard nothing to the contrary from them, 
would start on Friday in the early train for Boston. 

Well, Tuesday passed, and Wednesday came, and 
Thursday came, and at last — at last Friday came, 
and no letter from Mary Jane. My trunk was all 
packed. I took my best dress and my second best 
dress, and most of the everyday ones, and mother 
lent me her hair jewelry. I had my shade hat, and 
my common one, and my too-good hat (that last 
is one I Ve had for years — ever so many years — 


FROM THE PEN OF BETH HALL 73 


fully two years, I guess) ; and it ’s always too good 
to wear anywhere, and that ’s why it lasts so long. 
At the last mother declared she was sorry she had 
ever consented to let me go, for she was afraid 
Mrs. Hunt did n’t like to write that my coming 
would be inconvenient. She declared that I ought 
to have written that I would go if I heard that it 
would be agreeable. I had fifty frights that morn- 
ing before I was finally put in Deacon Green’s care 
in the cars; for he, too, was going to Boston that 
day. 

He promised my mother that, if no one was at 
the depot for me, he would put me in a carriage, so 
that I should get safely to Mrs. Hunt’s house. 

I was real mad to have him tag along — it would 
have been such fun to travel alone, and I did hope, 
when he stood so long on the platform talking to 
father, the cars would go off without him; but he 
jumped on just as they were starting. However, 
when we finally got to Boston, and I found that 
nobody was waiting for me there, I was glad 
enough to have him with me. 

I must say, as I rode along in the carriage, I 
thought it was real queer for no one to come to meet 
me ; but the city was so interesting I had forgotten 
about it by the time we stopped at the Hunt’s door. 


74 


A VISIT TO MARY JANE 


The house had a kind of shut-up look, and I felt 
queer for a moment, as I thought, perhaps, they 
were all away from home; but just then Mary 
Jane flew down the steps, and Dot came squealing 
behind her. 

“ Now, you just hush! ” said Mary Jane to her, 
after she had kissed me. “ You wake up Lucy, and 
see what you ’ll get.” (She is always awfully dom- 
ineering to Dot, Mary Jane is.) 

“ Why, what ’s the matter with Lucy? ” I asked. 
“ Why is she asleep in the daytime? ” 

“ Why, she is sick,” said Mary Jane. 

“ Oh, awful sick! ” cried Dot. 

“ ’T is n’t catching, though ; so come right in, 
Beth,” added Mary Jane, and in we went. 

She had the hackman carry my trunk up into 
her room; and she went up behind him all the way, 
ordering him to be quiet, and slapping Dot, and 
holding up her finger at me, and making more 
noise herself than all the rest of us put together. 

“You see, I have to take care of everything,” 
she said, when we were up at last. “ Mother has 
to stay with Lucy all the time, and Dot is so 
thoughtless. But what have you got in your 
trunk? ” 

“ Yes, why don’t you unpack? ” asked Dot. 


FROM THE PEN OF BETH HALL 75 


It took me some time to get to the bottom of 
my trunk, but I showed them everything that was 
in it. After that Mary Jane said she must go and 
see about tea. When we got downstairs we found 
the table set. 

“ Why, there ’s no preserves on it,” said Mary 
Jane to Bridget, who tossed her head, and 
answered, — 

“ Your ma did n’t order any, and I won’t open 
’em without her telling me.” 

“Oh, my!” cried Mary Jane; “you are very 
particular just now, are n’t you? You don’t mind 
so much when your aunt’s stepmother’s cousin 
comes.” 

Bridget turned as red as a beet. “ Now jist you 
take yourselves out of my kitchen! ” said she; and as 
true as you live she shut the door right in my face. 

“ Hateful old thing! ” cried Mary Jane. “ Well, 
never mind, I ’m going to the china-closet to get 
some. But which do you like best, — peach pre- 
serves or raspberry jam? ” 

“Peach preserves, o’ course,” answered Dot; 
“ everybody does.” 

I don’t see why Dot had to say that. It was just 
enough, and I knew it would be, to make Mary 
Jane take the jam. , When we went back to the 


c 

76 A VISIT TO MARY JANE 

dining-room we found Susan (that ’s the nurse) 
had come in with the baby. 

“Here, Mary Jane,” said she, “your ma said 
you were to take care of Baby while I ’m upstairs.” 

Mary Jane looked as cross as two sticks. “ Oh, 
bother! I can’t! I have Dot to take care of, and 
Beth, and the, house, and everything. Bridget 
ought to do that.” 

But just then Mr. Hunt came down. He looked 
real worried, but he spoke to me just as kind, and 
asked after the Tuckertown folks. I tried to tell 
him about the singing aff air, but he did n’t seem 
to take much interest, and soon went upstairs again. 

“ He has n’t eaten any of his supper,” said Dot. 
“ I ’m going to give his jam to Baby.” 

The baby had been sitting in a high chair up to 
the table, and had n’t had a thing but a piece of 
graham cracker to eat. I thought he was real 
good. 

“ He can’t have any jam. Here, give it to me,” 
said Mary Jane; “I’ll eat it.” 

Of course at that he banged his cracker on the 
floor, and began to cry for the jam. But Mary 
J ane did n’t take the slightest notice of him ; she 
went on eating the jam as calmly as if he was asleep 
in his cradle. Dot had been sent out on an errand, 


FROM THE PEN OF BETH HALL 77 


so I tried to amuse him; but he was afraid of me, 
and screamed louder than before. 

“ Don’t pay any attention to him,” said Mary 
Jane. “ I ’m going to break him of screaming so 
much; I always longed to break him of it, and at 
last I ’ve got a chance. When he finds no one takes 
any notice of him he ’ll stop it, I guess.” 

While he was screaming, Mrs. Hunt came down. 
She had on her wrapper, and her hair was just 
bobbed up, and she looked as if she had n’t slept f or 
a month. 

“ Mary Jane, why don’t you amuse him? ” she 
said, after she had shaken hands with me, and had 
taken Baby in her arms. “ You know that the noise 
disturbs Lucy, and yet you ’ll let him cry.” 

“ It ’s too bad,” said I. “ I would amuse him, 
only he is afraid of me.” 

“ Why, I ’ll amuse him, of course,” said Mary 
Jane. 

So her mother went upstairs again, and we had 
that child on our hands till seven o’clock, when 
Susan came and took him to bed. 

The next morning I told Mary Jane that I 
thought I ought to go home. 

“ Oh, no! ” she begged. “ You are here, and you 
might as well stay, and Lucy will be better soon.” 


78 


A VISIT TO MARY JANE 


“Oh,” said Dot, “don’t go! You can help us 
take care of Baby, you know.” 

“ I don’t see how I can be in your mother’s way 
when I hardly ever see her,” said I. “ Besides, it 
would be real mean to leave you while you are in 
trouble.” So I decided to stay. 

I should have had a splendid time of it, had it not 
been for the baby; but we never began any interest- 
ing play but Susan would come and leave him with 
us, and then he always had to be amused. I never 
saw such a child — never quiet a moment. They 
said it was because he was so bright. If I ever 
have a child, I hope it will be one of the stupid 
kind, that will sit on the floor and suck its thumb 
all day. 

He was particularly in the way when we went to 
see the sights. We went to the State House and 
the Art Museum, and one day Mary Jane showed 
me a place where they were having a baby show. 

“Mercy!” said Mary Jane, “who would ever 
want to go to that? ” 

“ Lots o’ people are going in, anyhow,” said 
Dot. 

We had started on, but all at once Mary Jane 
stopped short. “ ’Liz’beth,” said she, “ I ’ll tell you 
what, let ’s take Baby to the baby show. I mean 


FROM THE PEN OF BETH HALL 79 


to exhibit him, and p’raps he ’ll take a prize, and 
we will have the money.” 

W as n’t it a splendid idea ? The trouble was, we 
did n’t know how to get in. At last Mary Jane told 
the ticket-master what we wanted, and he sent for 
the manager. 

“ And so you want to put this little chap in the 
show,” said he. “ How old is he? ” 

Mary Jane told him. 

“ Well, he is a whopper,” said the man. 

“ Is it too late for him to get the prize?” we 
asked. 

“ Oh, he won’t stand so good a chance as if he 
had come at first. You see, the babies are all num- 
bered, and each person, when he goes out of the 
show, gives the number of the baby he thinks is 
the finest, and the one that has the most votes, so to 
speak, gets the prize. Those folks that came yes- 
terday, you see, have n’t voted for your baby; but 
then you ’ll have part of to-day and to-morrow.” 

“ Why, will we have to stay all the time? ” asked 
Mary Jane. 

“No, you can take him out when you choose; but 
the more he is here the more votes he ’ll get.” 

“ Well, if there ’s a prize for the baby that can 
cry loudest, he ’ll get it,” said Dot. 


80 


A VISIT TO MARY JANE 


But they did n’t give any prize for that. 

We gave Baby’s name and address to the mana- 
ger, who then took us in to the show. His number 
was three hundred and twelve, and a paper telling 
his age and number of teeth, and so on, was tacked 
over the little booth where we sat. 

There were lots of people in the room, but when 
any one came near our baby he cried. 

“ I do believe he won’t get a single vote,” said 
Mary Jane in despair. But somebody gave him 
some candy, and that pacified him for a while, and 
ever so many persons said he was the finest child in 
the show. We were so encouraged, we planned just 
how we would spend the money, and we stayed till 
dinner-time, when Mary Jane thought we ought 
to go home. 

Mrs. Hunt was real pleased that we had kept him 
out so long. It was a pleasant day, she said, and the 
air would do him good. 

“We will take him out again this afternoon,” 
said Mary Jane. 

When we went back, Baby was so tired he went 
to sleep in Dot’s lap. They looked awful cunning, 
and everybody raved over them; but we had to 
promise Dot everything under the sun to keep her 
quiet. 


FROM THE PEN OF BETH HALL 81 

Lucy was worse that night, and the next morn- 
ing Mrs. Hunt sent us right out after breakfast. 
We stayed at the show all day, but the baby was n’t 
good a bit. He screamed and kicked, and looked, 
oh, so red and ugly! We had to send Dot for 
some candy for him, and we felt worried and 
uncomfortable. 

The doctor’s carriage was at the door when we 
went home at last, and Mr. Hunt was walking up 
and down in the parlor. He called Mary Jane and 
Dot in, and I went upstairs, for Susan said the 
postman had left a letter for me. I thought it was 
from mother; but it was a printed thing from the 
Dead-letter Office, saying that a letter for me was 
detained there for want of postage. It had been 
sent to Tuckertown, and the postmaster had for- 
warded it to Boston. I had spent all my money, 
except just enough to buy my ticket home; but I 
thought I would take out enough for the stamps, 
and borrow six cents from Mrs. Hunt. I went out 
right off and mailed my letter, with the stamps, so 
as to get the other letter that was in the Dead-letter 
Office. When I came back I found Mary Jane 
crying in the hall. 

Lucy was worse and the doctor had given 
her up. 


6 


82 


A VISIT TO MARY JANE 


“ And I have always been so cross to her,” sobbed 
Mary Jane. 

“Yes, so you have!” put in Susan, who was 
coming downstairs with a tray. “ I hope you ’ll 
remember now to be kinder to Dot and the baby.” 

“But they are so healthy,” she sniffed. Well, 
she seemed to feel real bad, and it ’s no wonder, for 
Lucy is a darling. I could n’t help crying myself. 

That night poor little three hundred and twelve 
was taken sick. Mr. Hunt and the doctor came to 
our room to ask what we had given him to eat, 
and when we told them of the candy (we didn’t 
dare say a word about the show) they were angry 
enough. 

I sha’n’t forget that night in a hurry. I did n’t 
think it would ever come to an end, and we both lay 
and cried till the sun shone into our window in the 
morning, when Susan came to tell us that Lucy was 
sleeping beautifully, and was going to get well 
after all. After breakfast we went in to Mrs. 
Hunt’s room, which was next to the nursery, where 
Lucy lay, and she took us all in her arms — there 
was room for me, too — and we just cried with joy 
together. 

The baby had got all over his colic, and Mary 
Jane and I had just concluded we had better tell 


FROM THE PEN OF BETH HALL 83 


her mother where we had taken him, when a letter 
came for Mrs. Hunt. 

It was a notice that number three hundred and 
twelve had taken the third prize at the baby show. 

It could not have come at a better time for us, for 
how could she scold, with Lucy coming back to life, 
as it were, after those dreadful hours of suspense 
and suffering? But I know she did scold Mary 
Jane afterwards; for, of course, it was not right to 
keep the baby in that stuffy place, when she thought 
he was out in the fresh air; but that was after I 
went home, which happened a few days later. 

And what do you think! Just as the carriage 
came to take me to the depot, the postman left a 
sealed envelope from the Dead-letter Office. I 
opened it as the cars started, and, while I was trav- 
elling home, I read the very letter Mrs. Hunt had 
written in answer to the one I wrote her, to tell her I 
was about to visit them in Boston. And in that let- 
ter she had asked me to postpone my visit till some 
later date, on account of the illness of little Lucy. 


CHAPTER VIII 


SALLY 


B RIDGET had given warning. She was 
going away. Said she to my mother, — 

“ I have n’t the word of fault to be find- 
in’ wid ye, Mis’ Hunt. Yer as pleasant a lady as 
iver I lived with, niver complainin’ an’ frettin’; an’ 
the twins be rale swate little girls, an’ the baby ’s a 
darlin’. But, savin’ yer presence, mem, I can’t get 
along no ways wid Mary Jane, she ’s that trouble- 
some, mem.” 

“Yes,” said mother, “ I know she is rather try- 
ing; but — ” 

“ Tryin’,” cut in Bridget, “ tryin’ — an’ is that 
what ye name it? Shure she ’s a little imp, that ’s 
what she is, an’ no girl will put up wid her worrying 
ways. An’ says I to Susan last night, I ’ll be 
givin’ Mis’ Hunt warnin’ to-morrow, an’ put the 
door between us this day week.” 

“ There, Mary Jane,” cried mother, as Miss 
Bridget flounced out of the room, “ that is the third 
cook you have driven away.” 


SALLY 


85 


Well, Bridget went, and we had no cook and 
mother had to do the work. One day she fainted 
away and fell right down on the floor in the dining- 
room, just as we were sitting down to dinner. Oh, 
my, was n’t I scared that time, though ! But she 
soon got over it, and ate her dinner with the rest 
of us. 

F ather said her nervous system was worn out, and 
he hoped we children did not give her trouble; and 
he looked at me; but I was eating my dinner, 
and pretended I did n’t see him. 

I felt real sorry about Bridget after mother 
fainted, and wanted to do something to help her. 
So I offered to make some fruit cake while she 
dusted the parlor, and told Susan I would iron 
mother’s fluted wrapper while she took Baby out 
for a walk. 

Mother had engaged a cook before Bridget left 
to take her place; but she never came, and an- 
other one disappointed us after that. It was then 
I decided that I would go and get one myself. 

“ Why,” said Dot, to whom I confided what I 
was going to do, “ you don’t know how.” 

“ Oh, my, what a goose you are ! Why, I shall 
go to the Intelligence Office, of course.” 

“ Let me go too,” begged Dot. 


86 


SALLY 


I thought she might as well go, and that very 
afternoon we went. On the way there I asked Dot 
if she thought we had better get a Catholic girl. 

“Oh, no,” said she; “I do not like them, for 
they burn insects to their church.” 

I suppose she meant incense. 

We found there were a great many different 
girls at the Intelligence Office to choose from, and 
I told the man in charge there that I had come to 
engage a cook. 

“ What wages do you give? ” he asked, and the 
girls began to giggle. 

“ Oh, my,” cried Dot, “ you don’t know, do you, 
Mary Jane? ” 

“Of course I do. We give three dollars a 
month.” 

“ Oh, my,” said Dot, “ see ’em all toss their 
heads.” 

“ I guess you mean three dollars a week ” put in 
the Intelligence man. 

I thought I did. 

“ Well,” said he, “ you sit down, and I will send 
one here to talk with you.” 

So Dot and I sat down and watched him go from 
one to another. When he spoke to them they all 
shook their heads, and one said very loud, — 


SALLY 


87 


“ No, sir, I don’t care to try. I ain’t agoing to 
any place where they have children.” And another 
said, “ A quare sort of a lady as would send a 
bit choild loike that to engage a gurrell.” But 
by and by he found one that thought she might 
try it. 

“ How many in the family? ” said she, as she sat 
down on the bench opposite us. 

“ Well, there ’s my father — ” I began, when she 
interrupted me by asking, — 

“ How many shirts does he wear the week? ” 

“ Oh, I don’t know,” said I, “ just as many as 
you want him to.” 

“ Can you make nice rich cake? ” asked Dot. 

But I hushed her. Then said I to the girl, — 

“ Why did you leave your last place? ” 

“Well, ’t was at the shore, miss, an’ I thought 
the sea air was too embracin’ for me.” 

“ Are you good-natured? ” I asked next. 

“ Do you drink? ” put in Dot. 

“ Do you take the sugar home to your mother? ” 
said I. 

“ Oh, my sakes,” burst out Dot, “ how mad you 
do look.” 

Mad! I should think so. She jumped right up, 
screaming, — 


88 


SALLY 


“ I would n’t live with the likes of yez at no 
price,” and flounced off, Dot crying after her, — 

“We wouldn’t have you , if you’d come for 
nothing, for you can’t make nice rich cake.” 

Well, I talked with lots of them after that, but 
they none of them wanted to live where there were 
so many children in the family. 

“ So they won’t any of them suit,” said the man, 
leaning on my chair. “ How would you like a 
colored girl? ” 

“ Oh, I don’t believe my mother would want a 
colored girl,” said I. “We ’ve never had them.” 

“ Then I think you had better try one. The best 
families all have colored help nowadays. Here, 
Sally.” 

Dot nudged me as the colored girl came up, and 
said in a loud whisper, “ I like her, Mary Jane, let ’s 
have her.” 

She did look real pleasant. 

“ Can you make pies? ” I asked. 

“ Lor’, yes, chile. Ise fuss-rate cook.” 

“ There ’s five in the family,” said Dot, “ and 
most of them are children.” 

“ I likes chillens, they ’s company fur me.” 

“ Do you like them round in the kitchen? ” said I, 
“ and have you got a character? and do you drink? ” 


SALLY 


89 


“ Lor’s, how you talk now; course I don’t.” 

“ Well, you are engaged,” said I. “ When can 
you come ? ” 

She said she would come right away — just as 
soon as she got her bundle. So Dot and I went 
home with her, for I wouldn’t wait for her at the 
corner as she wished, for fear she wouldn’t come 
back. 

“ ’T is n’t anything at all to get a girl,” said I to 
Dot, as we all walked home. “ I don’t believe one 
word about it being so hard to keep house. I know 
I could do it. And I would never go a whole week 
without a cook when there are whole Intelligence 
Offices full of ’em. Won’t mother be pleased when 
she sees we have got one for her.” 

“ Well,” said Dot, with a sidelong glance at Sally, 
“ she ’s black, you know. But it is n’t her fault, is 
it? and, besides, the man says she is a treasure.” 

The first person we saw when we got home was 
Susan. She was sweeping down the stairs in the 
hall, and opened the door for us. 

The minute I saw her, I knew just how it would 
be. She would make a fuss. Susan is an American 
girl, and says she is as good as anybody, and she 
thinks she is a great deal better. A respectable 
American girl. That 9 s what she calls herself. 


90 


SALLY 


“ Well, who have you been picking up now, I 
should like to know? ” said she, with a real dis- 
agreeable look at our treasure. “ What do you 
want, young woman? ” 

“ Get out of the way, Susan,” said I. “ Where ’s 
mother? ” 

“ Your mother is lying down on the sofy. And 
your pa is with her, and you just let her have a 
moment’s peace. As for this young colored person, 
she can just tramp off.” 

But just then the sitting-room door opened, and 
I screamed out, — 

“ Say mother, I ’ve got a cook, and she is a per- 
fect treasure, and Susan says she sha’n’t stay.” 

Well, mother came out quick enough. She 
looked at Susan, and then at Sally, and then at 
Susan again, and gasped out: “Why, what do 
you mean, child? Where did you get her? ” 

“ At the Intelligence Office, mum. An’ sure 
she ’s a foine cook,” said I. 

“ And ’t is n’t any matter if she is black,” cried 
Dot, “ because she is a treasure. The man said so.” 

“ No, ’t is n’t my fault ’cause Ise a culled pus- 
son,” whimpered Sally, “ and Ise a fuss-class cook, 
I is.” 

“ Yes, she is real pleasant,” cried Dot, “ and likes 


SALLY 


91 


to have children round in the kitchen. You are 
hurting her feelings dreadfully; ” and Dot flung 
herself onto Sally and began to cry. 

All this time Susan stood scowling, and mother 
looking as if she did n’t know which way to turn. 
But when the baby cried, and Susan went upstairs, 
I burst out, — 

“ Mother, do let Sally stay. You said you 
had half a mind to let Susan sleep in the nursery 
and take care of Baby nights, so you could rest 
better. If you do that, Sally can have the Great 
Mogul Susan’s room, and I don’t see why they 
could n’t get along well enough.” 

And that ’s the way it was finally settled. 
Thanks to me, at last we had a cook ; but though I 
had taken all that trouble to get her, no one seemed 
very grateful, or to realize how the whole burden of 
the housekeeping falls on me. 

One thing, the new cook never complains of me, 
as the old ones used to do, and mother often says, — 

“ To be sure, Sally is the most incompetent, care- 
less, wasteful, impertinent girl I ever had in the 
house, but she can get along with Mary J ane.” 


CHAPTER IX 


MRS. MELANCTHON BENNER 

I F there is anybody in this world that I am 
afraid of, it is mother’s friend, Mrs. Melanc- 
thon Benner. 

I often think how queer it is, that although she 
is so very particular about my friends, mother never 
seems to care whether I approve of hers or not. 
It ’s well that she does not, too, for they are not at 
all to my fancy. They are such a dowdy lot, and I 
don’t much mind about folks being intelligent. 

To begin with, there is Mrs. Harvey Cutter; the 
homeliest woman! and she is always saying to me: 
“If you were 7ny little girl, I should make you do 
so and so ” (some horrid thing) , or “ if I were your 
mother, I would not allow you to do so and so.” 
No, I don’t like her at all. Then there is Mrs. 
Butler who makes such long calls just before din- 
ner time; who hangs on half an hour after she says 
she must go, and half an hour longer out in the hall, 
and tops off with fifteen minutes on the doorsteps. 
I don’t think Mrs. Flagg is a nice person for 


MRS. MELANCTHON BENNER 


93 


mother to be with. Her influence is n’t good. Once 
she influenced her not to let us children eat cake 
between meals. She is always saying things are un- 
healthy! that they injure the coat of one’s stomach, 
or are too stimulating to the nervous system, or ruin 
the digestive organs. As for Mrs. Brown, she can 
talk of nothing but her daughter in Rome. She al- 
ways brings a lot of letters from her in her bag, 
and she reads every one of them through, although 
they are only about the places she visits and such 
uninteresting things. She always writes that she 
is sitting by the open window, and that they are 
having peaches, plums, cherries, apricots, and so on. 

But they are none of them so awful as Mrs. Me- 
lancthon Benner. Her eyes go right through you 
— they do — and when she speaks it fairly makes 
you jump. Even grown people are rather afraid 
of her, although they won’t own it, but are always 
telling how kindhearted she is, and that they don’t 
mind her “ way.” 

Mamie Whyte, although she is her own niece, 
owns that she is dreadfully afraid of her. She says 
when she goes to her house at Breezy Cove visit- 
ing, sometimes, in the summer, she just grows thin, 
she is so afraid of doing something her aunt won’t 
like. 


94 MRS. MELANCTHON BENNER 

Well, one day Mrs. Benner invited mother to 
make her a visit, and she invited Dot and me to 
come too. I suppose mother would have been much 
better pleased to go alone, but she had to take us 
because Mrs. Benner said so. 

I was delighted that I was to go, for I hadn’t 
seen much of Mrs. Benner then, and I knew her 
house was right on the beach. 

I told mother that we children would stay out of 
doors all the time, so she need n’t worry about our 
getting into mischief. 

Said mother: “ I never saw the place yet, Mary 
Jane, where you could n’t get into mischief ; but if 
I let you go I shall expect you to behave as well as 
you know how all the time we are there.” And 
she said I was n’t to leave my pocket-handkerchief 
around, or interrupt people, and must always think 
before I did anything whether it would be agree- 
able to Mrs. Benner. 

It was perfectly lovely at Breezy Cove. The 
house looked right out on the ocean, and the beach 
was n’t a stone’s throw from the house. On one 
side was a lovely pine grove, and farther down on 
the beach some famous old cliffs. I felt sure that 
I should enjoy every minute I spent there. 

They came to the station for us with a jolly span 


MRS. MELANCTHON BENNER 


95 


of bay horses, and Mamie was waiting on the piazza 
of the house to meet me, — 

“ Just think,” said she, “Aunt Matilda wasn’t 
going to invite you, at all, at first. Only just your 
mother and Dot. She likes Dot, because she is so 
pretty. But one day Miss Jenkins was here talk- 
ing about you, and Aunt Matilda said you were a 
remarkably plain child, but she thought you were 
smart, and she had a mind to invite you here with 
your mother and Dot. I thought I had better tell 
you; and now you must remember and be real 
smart, Mary Jane.” 

“ Well,” said I, “ it ’s just as easy for me to be 
smart as anything. Why, Mamie Whyte, I just 
can’t help it. Sometimes when I am talking, and 
not thinking one thing about it, everybody bursts 
out laughing, and I know I ’ve been smart again.” 

“ I wish I could say funny things,” said Mamie. 
“ I never did but just once, and then, was n’t it too 
bad? I forgot what it was, and never could say it 
again.” 

The first few days I got on beautifully at Breezy 
Cove. We went in bathing every day, and we drove 
and had picnics in the grove, and Mamie and I used 
to say before we dared even to sit down in a chair, 
“ Now, will this be agreeable to Mrs. Benner? ” 


96 


MRS. MELANCTHON BENNER 


To be sure, once I did upset her work-basket, but 
she was not in the room, and we picked everything 
up before she came back. But I don’t think she 
liked me much, after all, for she never smiled when 
I said smart things, and Mamie confessed that she 
had called me a very forward child. At any rate, 
I did n’t get into one speck of mischief until just at 
the last, and then — But that ’s what I am going 
to tell about. 

One day, Mrs. Benner and mother were going to 
Hillvery. There were stores there, and mother 
wished to do some shopping, and they were going 
to take dinner with a friend and would not be back, 
they said, till quite late in the evening. Mamie and 
I were glad, because her aunt was cross that day, 
and we did all we could to help them off. I even 
sewed a ruffle in the neck of mother’s dress. 

“ You are getting to be a real help to me, Mary 
Jane,” said she, when it was done. “ Suppose you 
find my parasol, for I have n’t a moment to lose, and 
then run down in the library and put my list, which 
you will find on the table there, into my purse.” 

I found Mamie and Dot in the library, and Dot 
said, — 

“ I wonder if mother has got any candy down 
on her list. You look and see, Mary Jane.” 


MRS. MELANCTHON BENNER 


97 


I read the list over, but mother had forgotten the 
candy. So I found a pen and put it down for her. 

“ Write a pound of nut candy, too,” giggled 
Dot. 

“And some soothing syrup for Aunt Matilda,” 
added Mamie. 

“ No, that won’t do,” said I, “ for Mrs. Benner 
may see the list.” But Mamie, who was in high 
spirits that morning, seized a pen and began to 
chase me around the table, and I don’t know how 
it happened, but I suppose we must have hit the 
inkstand, for the first thing I knew it was upside 
down on the elegant Persian carpet. 

Just at that moment the carriage came round to 
the door, and we heard mother and Mrs. Benner 
on the stairs. 

I slipped the list into the pocket-book and grab- 
bing the parasol flew out into the hall, and soon saw 
the carriage drive off towards Hillvery. 

Then I ran back to the library, where I found 
Mamie and Dot trying to wipe up the ink. 

“ It ’s a pity,” said I, “ we had n’t stopped to ask 
if this would be agreeable to Mrs. Benner.” 

“ How can you laugh? ” cried Mamie, trying to 
find a clean corner of her inky pocket-handkerchief 
to wipe away her tears. “ I feel dreadfully.” 

7 


98 


MRS. MELANCTHON BENNER 


I felt dreadfully, too, if I did laugh, for I re- 
membered that I had promised mother not to do 
anything to annoy Mrs. Benner while we stayed at 
Breezy Cove. At last I said, “ Let ’s go out on the 
beach, and perhaps we can forget all about it.” 

So we went out, and for a long time we walked 
mournfully up and down on the sand, not having 
the heart for any of our usual games, but won- 
dering what Mrs. Benner would say when we told 
her that we had spoiled her handsome carpet. 

It was a perfectly lovely day, and by and by I 
could not help feeling better, and Mamie said she 
did n’t mean to worry any more, f or perhaps her 
Aunt Matilda would not care so very much after 
all. 

“ Yes,” said Dot, “ perhaps she will say, ‘ Never 
mind, little dears; accidents will happen,’ and 
then we shall be sorry we worried so.” 

So we began to cheer up, and by and by we put 
on our bathing-dresses, and, as the water was warm 
that day, we stayed in a long time and played we 
were sirens. After that we went fishing, intending, 
if we were lucky enough to catch any fish, to cook 
them on the rocks. But we did n’t catch any fish, 
and it was after we had put up our fishing lines in 
despair that I suggested a bonfire. 



"we stayed in a long time and played we were sirens. 

— Page 98. 






MRS. MELANCTHON BENNER 


99 


“ I think it will be great fun,” said Mamie. 
“ We can build it on that flat rock, and pretty soon 
the tide will come in and wash all the cinders and 
things away.” 

But that was n’t what I meant at all. The idea 
of having a bonfire in the daytime! 

“ It will be much more fun after it ’s dark. 
Did n’t your aunt say they would be gone till nine 
o’clock? ” 

Mamie nodded. “ Yes she did, but, oh, Mary 
Jane, how horrid it would be if she should come 
back and see it.” 

“Well,” said I, “I don’t know what harm it 
could possibly do, or why she would care; besides, 
we will have it on the other side of the cliff,” said 
I, “ and then it could n’t be seen from the house at 
all." 

“ Suppose it sets fire to something,” suggested 
Dot. 

“ The rocks won’t burn,” answered Mamie, scorn- 
fully, “ nor the sea, nor the sand. Come, we must 
get it all ready this afternoon.” 

There was plenty of driftwood scattered along 
the beach, and we soon made the biggest bonfire 
that I ever saw. 

After tea we went out and sat on the rocks, and 

L. OF C, 


100 


MRS. MELANCTHON BENNER 


waited for it to grow dark. I did n’t feel very com- 
fortable, but pretended I was having a real good 
time, and I think Mamie was only pretending, too, 
for she kept saying, “ I am sure Aunt Matilda 
won’t care,” and, “ I am not disobeying her, for she 
never forbade my having a bonfire.” 

It had grown by this time quite dark, so that 
Mamie said it was time for the fun to begin. 

We had brought some pine needles from the 
grove and had only to drop a lighted match on 
them, and the whole pile blazed up splendidly. I 
thought it was the loveliest thing I had ever seen; 
but it lit up the entire beach, and we had to knock 
off some of the top sticks for fear it would attract 
people from the other side of the cliff. 

“Pooh! I don’t care if Mrs. Benner does see 
it,” said I, for I was n’t nearly so low in my spirits 
after the fun began. “ It ’s so pretty she would 
like it, I know.” 

“ So do I,” cried Mamie, and of course Dot 
echoed, “ So do I.” And as I danced around the 
fire I went on, — 

“If she should come along now, I would say: 
4 And how do you do, Mrs. Benner? I hope you 
are enjoying the bonfire,’ I would.” 

“ And we hope it ’s agreeable to you, Mrs. 


MRS. MELANCTHON BENNER 101 

Benner,” shouted Mamie, flinging on another 
stick. 

Just then Dot grabbed my arm, and Mamie 
dropped the stick she was going to throw on the 
pile, and f altered out in the meekest little voice, — 

“ We are only having a bonfire, Aunt Matilda; I 
hope you don’t care,” and then everybody shouted 
as we saw we had mistaken Mamie’s cape, which 
was flapping round a high rock, for Mrs. Benner. 

But we felt rather nervous after that, and Dot, 
whom we sent to find out if the lamps were lit in 
the house, said that the folks had come back from 
Hillvery, and that she thought Pauline — Mrs. 
Benner’s maid — was calling us. 

There was still some fire left, and. it was fun to 
stone it and see the sparks fly; but it would take a 
great while to put it all out in that way. And so 
we brought water in an old leaky dipper we found, 
and flung on it, and as we scrambled off we felt 
sure that we had done no harm in having our 
bonfire. 

When we got home we went right to bed, but for 
a long time neither Mamie nor I could get to sleep. 
It was a warm night, and the mosquitoes were thick, 
and still more disturbing was the recollection of the 
accidents of the day for which, as we lay there in 


102 


MRS. MELANCTHON BENNER 


the dark, we seemed to ourselves much more to 
blame. There is no rest, you see, for a person who 
has such a tender conscience as I have. However, 
at last I did fall asleep and was dreaming that I 
went to Tuckertown and found that Aunt Jane 
and Aunt Prue had turned into sirens, when I was 
suddenly roused by the sound of people running 
up and down the house. 

I sat up in bed and rubbed my eyes, wondering 
why the room was so light, when it suddenly flashed 
upon me that there must be a fire outside. I flew to 
the window and found that the pine grove was in 
flames. A horrid thought came over me; but no, 
there was not a spark to be seen when we left the 
bonfire. 

I made a dash at Mamie and told her what had 
happened. 

“Aunt Matilda’s pine grove!” she exclaimed. 
“ Oh, my, what will she say? Well, our little bon- 
fire could n’t have done it. A spark could nt have 
blown over there, could it, Mary Jane?” 

I had never once thought of that. I said that I 
didn’t believe it could, but I felt very uncomfort- 
able. I told Mamie that I had heard her aunt say 
that she wouldn’t take five thousand dollars for 
those trees. 


MRS. MELANCTHON BENNER 103 

“ She had better have taken it if she ever had the 
chance,” replied Mamie, “ because now the fire is 
going to get them for nothing. But it is n’t our 
fault, is it? ” 

By and by mother came into our room. She told 
us the men were trying to put the fire out; but 
there was not much hope of saving the trees unless 
the wind should change and blow the flames back 
towards the sea. 

After she went out, Mrs. Benner came in and 
sat down by the window, and I knew the hour of 
reckoning had come. 

“ Children,” she began, “ did any fishermen have 
a fire on the rocks yesterday? ” 

“No,” answered Mamie, and with those piercing 
eyes of Mrs. Benner upon her, I don’t wonder she 
couldn’t go on. 

Instead, she screwed up her courage, and con- 
fessed about the ink we had spilled in the library. 

“ Well, well,” answered Mrs. Benner (if you 
will believe it, in Dot’s very words), “accidents 
will happen, I suppose. I would rather everything 
in the house should be spoiled than lose those 
trees.” 

It seemed harder than ever after that to own 
having built the bonfire; but I squeezed Mamie’s 


104 


MRS. MELANCTHON BENNER 


hand under the bedclothes, and she gave mine 
such an encouraging squeeze in return that I 
blurted out the whole truth. 

There was a dreadful pause when I stopped, till 
Dot, who had come in with mother, began to cry, 
and Mrs. Benner said, in, oh, such a disagreeable 
voice, — 

“ Then, Mary Jane, I have you to thank for the 
loss of my trees. I must say, you are the most 
mischievous girl I ever had in my house; for I 
don’t need to be told who proposed it. Mamie, I 
shall send you home to-morrow ; ” and she marched 
out of the room leaving us all crying on the bed. 

The grove was not entirely burned after all, but 
so many trees were scorched that I could not bear 
to go into it the rest of the time I stayed at Breezy 
Cove. 

For the matter of that, Dot and I were not 
allowed to stir out of sight, and mother often told 
us how mortified she had been, and that she never 
should take either of us visiting again. And 
though I am so sensitive I shrink from a harsh 
word, 1 knew I deserved every one of them. 

But one thing I know, and that is, I will never, 
no never, even if she goes down on her knees to me, 
pay a second visit to Mrs. Melancthon Benner. 


CHAPTER X 


MY COME OUT PARTY 

I T was almost time for my birthday, and mother 
said I might have a party. I was filled with 
delight at the idea, for I never had one before. 
I don’t mean a birthday, of course, for I had 
already had fifteen of them , and this was to be the 
sixteenth. Yes, I was to be sweet sixteen. But 
though mother said it was a birthday party, I told 
everybody that it was to be my come out party. 

“ Why,” said Mamie Whyte, “ you won’t 
graduate for three years, Mary Jane. Do you 
mean to say that your mother is going to let you 
come out into society now? ” 

“ Well, no, I don’t suppose she will,” I admitted. 
“ Then you can’t have a come out party.” 

“ Can’t I come out and go in again, I should 
like to know? ” said I. 

But Mamie laughed that idea to scorn. “ Why, 
it would be the queerest thing I ever heard of. No- 
body does,” said she, and she seemed to think that 
ought to settle it. 


106 


MY COME OUT PARTY 


Now I believe a person at my age should decide 
such questions for herself. You see a good deal of 
time had gone by since the days I had played those 
childish pranks I have been telling about in the for- 
mer chapters, and I don’t make the foolish blunders 
I did then. 

Mamie Whyte is not my bosom friend any more, 
for Mabel Conway has taken her place. Mabel and 
I have been devoted to each other ever since the 
day she first came to our school. 

The Conways have been living abroad for some 
years — ever so many years — as many as two 
years, I am sure, and they don’t like America or 
Americans very much. At first I used to be vexed 
with Mabel about this. 

“ I should think you would be ashamed to talk 
in such a disparaging way about your own country 
and your own country-people,” said I, one day. 
“ It is n’t patriotic at all.” 

“ Mercy, I don’t care to be patriotic,” she replied. 
“ Nobody is, after they have been abroad. And as 
for talking so about Americans, if you could see 
what a figure they cut over there, you would n’t 
wonder. Everybody laughs at them.” 

“ Well, then,” said I, “ I think people had better 
stay at home. Anyhow it was real sensible in you to 


MY COME OUT PARTY 


107 


turn round and come back when you found out 
what a laughing-stock you were.” 

Mabel never said one word, but judging by her 
looks I should say she was boiling. 

The next day she came to me and said, — 

“ I am ever so sorry if I offended you by saying 
what I did about Americans ; but I really did n’t 
think you would mind, you are so unlike them 
yourself.” 

“ Am I,” said I, rather shortly. “ How? ” 
“Well, they are so — now don’t be offended, 
Mary Jane — so forward in their manners. The 
young girls especially, and you are so — so — ” 

“ Retiring,” I suggested. 

“ Yes, that ’s just it. So retiring. You must 
own that most of the girls are ill-bred and awfully 
slangy, and you, dear, you are — ” 

“ Real particular,” said I, as she hesitated again. 
“ Y r es, particular and very refined.” 

I made up my mind I would not report this 
conversation to mother, for she never had liked 
Mabel very much. She always provoked me by 
saying that Mabel was not sincere, and I was very 
sure that she would laugh at her compliments. 
Besides, I remembered that when I told her that 
Mabel had offered to help me form my manners like 


108 


MY COME OUT PARTY 


an English girl’s, instead of being pleased, as one 
might reasonably expect, mother just laughed at 
the idea. 

“ Why,” said she, “ if you had English manners 
they could not possibly be unaffected, and that is 
what Mabel professes to admire. The truth is, 
she is like a great many other people who come 
home from Europe and find fault with American 
manners, but fail to show us what good manners 
are.” 

“ I think Mabel’s manners are lovely,” said I, 
and then the discussion ended. 

But to return to the party, for which I had sent 
out nearly a hundred invitations. I asked ever so 
many stupid girls just so I could invite their nice 
brothers; and a good many boys for the sake of 
their pretty sisters. Then there were all those I 
did n’t dare to leave out, but hoped would n’t come, 
and a few that I wanted, but was afraid I didn’t 
know well enough to invite. Besides these, there 
were a number of Dot’s friends and Lucy’s. 

Well, at last — at last the day really came. My 
dress with sash and gloves was laid out upon the 
bed, and the time was drawing near when I should 
put them on. In the mean time I was lounging 
about the parlors in old slippers and a ragged shawl 


MY COME OUT PARTY 


109 


tied over a dressing sacque. Just as I had con- 
cluded that it was none too soon to make my toilet, 
the door bell rang, and as there was not time for 
v me to rush upstairs before the new-comer was 
admitted, I hid myself in the closet which leads off 
the back parlor. I had hardly got in, before one of 
mother’s friends was shown into the parlor, and soon 
mother herself came down. Now, unfortunately, 
that closet door never will stay latched, and we 
generally keep it locked. I suppose, as mother sat 
there talking, she looked around the room to see if 
everything was in order, for pretty soon she got 
up and shutting the door behind which I was 
shrinking, turned the key. At first I thought I 
would ask to be let out, but concluded that I would 
wait until Mrs. Brown was gone. I did n’t think 
she would stay very long ; but when she left, mother 
went out with her into the hall and did not come 
back into the parlor again. 

But I never thought of being uneasy. I was 
perfectly sure that some one would come to my 
relief. 

It was not until the clock on the mantel struck 
seven that I became alarmed. It was now already 
time that I was dressed, and though I banged on the 
door until I was tired, nobody came to let me out. 


110 


MY COME OUT PARTY 


To make a long story short, when the first arri- 
vals to my party entered the parlor I was still in 
the closet. I could tell by the voices that beside 
mother and the twins there were not very many in 
the room. Should I disclose myself, now, in my 
bedroom slippers and ragged shawl? It was my 
only chance, and I waited and lost it. In half an 
hour the rooms were full. 

There is a transom over the closet door, and, as 
the step-ladder was in the closet, I saw no reason 
why I should n’t at least have the pleasure of 
looking on at the party. 

I climbed up and took a peep. 

“ Well,” said I to myself, “ it don’t seem to be a 
very brilliant affair.” 

The horrid girls that I had invited for the sake 
of their handsome brothers had all come without the 
brothers. Dot and Lucy with their friends had 
beaten a retreat, and, judging by the sounds, were 
enjoying some noisy games in the sitting-room 
overhead. The rest of the company sat round in 
dull little groups which were occasionally broken up 
for a sad set of quadrilles or a solemn waltz. They 
did n’t attempt the German, and on the whole I 
began to be resigned that I was not able to be pres- 
ent at my come out party. 


MY COME OUT PARTY 


111 


It was a capital opportunity to study my friends, 
and I made the most of it. I discovered that even- 
ing why it was, for instance, that everybody liked 
that plain Minna Gail, with her quiet way of mak- 
ing people comfortable. And, as I watched my 
dear Mabel, I wondered if mother had not been 
right after all, and that she was only affecting to 
be unaffected. 

I had I slight hope that when the time for sup- 
per came, and the people left the room, there might 
be a chance for me to escape from my hiding-place, 
and I could join the revels after all. But no one 
that I cared to call upon for assistance came into 
the parlor. When the rooms began to fill up again I 
longed to scream out that “ I ’d take vanilla,” or to 
ask if the supper had been as solemn an affair as 
the rest of the entertainment. 

While I was wondering if there was anything I 
could do to make time pass quicker, Mabel and 
Annie Lane sat down by the closet door, and I 
heard Mabel quite distinctly as she whispered, — 

“ Is n’t this the queerest party you ever went to? 
I was sure it would be, and I told mamma that I 
would n’t miss it for the world. I think the Hunts 
are awfully common, don’t you? and I do believe 
that was Philadelphia ice cream.” 


112 


MY COME OUT PARTY 


“ But the queerest of all is to go to a party where 
the girl that gives it is left out/’ giggled Annie, 
and Mabel replied, — 

“ I never did think much of Mary Jane. She is 
a perfect American girl, and her manners are 
awful.” 

I don’t remember anything more about my party. 
I came down the step-ladder then, and sat on the 
floor until it was over. As the last person left the 
house, I gave a great bang on the door, and mother 
with a cry of surprise unlocked it, and as she saw 
me in my old shawl, and hair still in curl papers, 
she took in the situation at once, and burst out 
laughing. As for me, I flung myself into the near- 
est chair and cried, but it was n’t because I had been 
obliged to be absent from my own come out party. 
It was because I was so disappointed in Mabel. 

When I had told the whole story to mother, which 
I did then and there, she placed everything in what 
I felt to be its true light. 

“ I would n’t mind what Mabel said,” she began. 
“ The ice cream may not have been of the best 
quality, but it is n’t so ‘ common ’ to have even 
‘ Philadelphia ice cream ’ as to accept a person’s 
hospitality and then laugh at it. As for your 
manners, dear, we don’t care whether they are 


MY COME OUT PARTY 


1 13 


American or English, provided they are good, and 
no girl’s will be that until she learns to think more 
of others than of herself.” 

I don’t think I shall ever try to give another come 
out party. I don’t believe I have a gift for society 
after all, and I don’t take any interest in such 
things any more. I am beginning to be perfectly 
devoted to books, and I am expecting to pass a 
splendid examination. 

The other day some one asked me if I intend to 
teach after I graduate, and I believe I would if I 
only could be sure that I never should have any 
scholars like — er — well like Beth Hall, for in- 
stance, who was such a trial to ’Tildy Joy. 


































































































































































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